Chapter Seven
As I studied the lower windows on the south side of the cathedral I came across a mystery. There are a series of lancet windows in which the center of the flowers had been replaced by very yellow human faces. It was unlike any of the other, all-flora windows and seemed somehow both whimsical and personal among the uniform solemnity of the other windows. The faces are surrounded by oak leaves, vaguely recalling a powerful symbol of the earth and nature among pre-Christian cultures (including the Celts) known as The Green Man or a foliate head. Like many pagan iconographies and traditions, the symbolism was “christianized” on at least a superficial level and can be found throughout the Roman and Gothic churches and cathedrals.
