Woodwoses

As everyone who has read Gawain and the Green Knight knows, among the perils faced by Sir Gawain as he rides in search of the Green Chapel through an England that never quite existed (but should have) are the woodwoses, the wild people of the woods. ('Sumwhyle wyth wormez he werrez, and with wolves als, Sumwhyle with wodwos that woned in the knarrez' [Sometimes he fights with dragons, and with wolves, as well; sometimes with woodwoses, that lived among the crags].)

When I was in Norfolk last autumn I visited a couple of churches which had figures of woodwoses carved on their fonts. I'd guess that in that context the woodwose, the wild man, was a symbol of the natural, unregenerate human being, unredeemed by christening. But that is just a guess.

In medieval iconography, woodwoses are covered in hair, and they carry clubs. The font of St Catherine's, Ludham, has two woodwoses carved on it: a male and a female.





The font of St Edmund's, Acle, has four very fine woodwoses, still with traces of paint:



There were various different conceptions of woodwoses, wild men, homines silvestres, in medieval and Renaissance texts. Sometimes they seem to be conceived of as a separate but related species from the human. Probably rumours of the great apes contributed to the legends. Sometimes they are simply humans who have become wild through grief or despair or outright madness. At one point in the Lancelot stories he runs to the woods and lives as a wild man after Guinevere's rejection drives him mad. During the Renaissance, the natives of America and other places are quite often compared with and even identified with wild men.

Some woodwoses are gentle creatures, vegetarians, living like humans did in the lost Age of Gold. Others are altogether ogreish, even cannibalistic.

The most famous wild man of medieval fiction was the hero Orson (urse-son, the bear's son). His story begins when Bellisant, Empress of Constantinople, is banished by her husband the Emperor, who has been led to believe she has been plotting against him. The Empress, who is pregnant, gives birth to two twin sons under a tree in a forest. One of the babies is carried off by a bear:

The Beer that had taken one of the chyldren of Bellyssant, devoured it not but bare it in to his caverne that was profounde and obscure. In the whiche was foure younge Beers stronge and puyssaunt. The Beer caste the chylde amonge hys whelpes to be eaten, but god that never forgeteth his frendes shewed an evydent myracle. For the younge Beeres dydde it no harme, but with theyr roughe pawes strooked it softely. When the Beer sawe that her lytle whelpes would not devoure it, she was right amerous of the chylde (so muche) that she kepte it and gave it sucke a hole yeare. The chylde was all roughe because of the nutrifactyon of the beer, as a wilde beest. So he began to go in to the woode, and became great in a while and began for to smyte the other beastes of the forest, in suche wyse that they all douted hym, and fledde before him, For he fered nothyng in the worlde. In suche estate was the chylde ledyng a beastes lyfe the space of xv. yeare. He became so great and strong, that none durst passe through the forest for hym, for bothe men and beastes he did put unto dethe, and eate their flesh al rawe as the other beastes did, and lived a beastual life and not humayne. He was called Orson, because of the beere that had nouryshed hym, and he was al so rough as a beere. He dyd so muche harme in the forest, and was so sore redoubted, that there was none, were he never so valiaunt and hardy, but that he had great fere to encountre the wylde man. The renowne sprange so of hym, that all they of the countrey aboute chaced and hunted hym with force and strength, but nothynge avaylled all their deade, for he fered neyther gynnes* nor wepons, but brake all in peces. Now he is in the forest ledyng the life of a wilde beast, without wering of any cloth, or any worde speaking.

*gins, traps

from The Hystory of the two valyaunte Brethren Valentyne and Orson (c. 1510; text from 1565 edition)

translated from the French romance Valentin et Orson (originally written between 1475 and 1489) by Henry Watson (floruit 1500–1518)


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