Green Ladies

Why do we find lots of Green Ladies on haunting Scotland. It seems most castles and stately homes have one north of the border, but I only know of one in England. Is it purely a cultural iconic description or do they actually appear green?

I suspect its more a cultural thing, with green being the colour of the little people. But on the reverse of this, green men seems to be a largely English tradition. There are representations up here, but doesn't seem to nearly as many folktales about them up here.

Glaistigs, the strange, half goat faerie beings of Scottish mythology, have been traditionally described also as Green Ladies. A link perhaps?



Was green linked with nobility at all? You know, with specific dyes that would be harder to come by in large quantities, or of a particular hue? Perhaps that's why? I don't know. Shot in the dark and all that.

It is said that a Green Lady haunts Fordell Estate - Fife, I remember many moons ago when I was a young teenager - my friend told me that her sister was very ill with flu - and her mother had gone into her sisters bedroom around about mid-night to put her lamp out, when she entered the room, sitting on her sisters bed was a vision of a Green Lady, her sister never new she was there, she was asleep, and apparently her mother was only in the room a couple of seconds when the Green Lady disappeared. At the time they lived in the big farm house on Vantage Farm on the Estate. But it has been known for years about the Green Lady who haunts the Estate amongst other ghosts and legends.

Green is a fairly easy dye to get from nature - nettles being a good example. It would seem to make sense that people would have used dyes readily available and abundant for their clothes. So I'm wondering if the 'little people' and green connection is more a Victorian invention? Anyone able to offer up any evidence either way?

It's just perculiar that they tend to be in Scotland, though I think there may be one at Longleat if memory serves.

I wonder how many green ladies are green because they appear green as ghosts or the ghost is interpreted as being the spectre of someone who, when alive was know for their green atire?

Enough questions to write a thesis on green gals.

Quote :

I wonder how many green ladies are green because
they appear green as ghosts or the ghost is interpreted as being the
spectre of someone who, when alive was know for their green atire?

That may be the whole crux of the question. Do they appear green and if so why? I came across one referred to as a green lady because she was wearing green coloured riding clothes when she died, but I am unsure about the others.

Talking about green mysteries... It just came to my mind the case of the Green Children of Woolpit, Suffolk and the Green Children of Banjos (or Bajos), probably an imitation of the previous story. Will post that in the due time.
There's also a work by that great writer, H.G. Wells, called The Plattner Story which chronicles the misadventures of a chemistry professor whose experiments land him in the "Fifth Dimension", a place where absolutely everything is bathed in a livid green light.
Must there surely be a connection here...

I think there was a Green Faced Ghost in Blackpool as well come to think of it.

Please do post on the Green Children of Woolpit - that's a story I only heard recently, and what I read was fairly brief.

In my humble opinion, green is a comfortable, safe, positive color - perhaps the green is to indicate that the specter poses no threat?

Did you know that the reason most leaves are green is the colour of our sun? On other planets orbiting different stars, the vegetation could be red or blue.

I always thought plants were green because chlorophyll is poor at absorbing that part of the spectrum?

Sunlight is primarily a mixture of blue and red light. Chlorophyl absorbs those wavelengths almost perfectly, reflecting the green part of the spectrum. See http://www.pa.msu.edu/sciencet/ask_st/081496.html

I have often wondered what we'd be able to see if our eyes, instead of being limited to the so-called "visible" would have a slightly broader perception.
If I remember correctly from my studies the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum is a very tiny area around 10 to the 15th power Hz in frequency and whose wavelength limits are 400 nm (roughly corresponding to the color violet) and 700 nm (roughly corresponding to the color red). A pretty meager part of the electromagnetic spectrum, but that's enough to see where you are going and what you are about to eat (or what is about to eat you, for what that matters). Below 400nm we have the Ultraviolet part of the spectrum (UV) and above 700 nm we have the Infrared part (IR) both of which have a considerable larger extension than the visible part of the spectrum.
But I guess you have to stick with what evolution provided...

wombat wrote:

Please do post on the Green Children of Woolpit - that's a story I only heard recently, and what I read was fairly brief.

In my humble opinion, green is a comfortable, safe, positive color - perhaps the green is to indicate that the specter poses no threat?

Have a look here: http://anomalyinfo.com/articles/sa00022.shtml . The part about the chase for original sources is particulary good.

Ta!

There is also the green lady of Dunstaffnage Castle. I'm none to clear on the details of the legend, however.