Green Man

This public-house sign represents the gamekeeper, who used at one time to be dressed in green.

“But the ‘Green Man shall I pass by unsung,

Which mine own James upon his sign-post hung?

His sign, his image—for he once was seen

A squire’s attendant, clad in keeper’s green.”

Crabbe: Borough.

The men who let off fireworks were called Green-men in the reign of James I.

“Have you any squibs, any green-man in your shows?”—The Seven Champions of Christendom.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.