Wild man

The wild man (also wildman, or "wildman of the woods", archaically woodwose or wodewose) is a mythical figure that appears in the artwork and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands.

The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; from the 12th century they were consistently depicted as being covered with hair. Images of wild men appear in the carved and painted roof bosses where intersecting ogee vaults meet in the Canterbury Cathedral, in positions where one is also likely to encounter the vegetal Green Man. The image of the wild man survived to appear as supporter for heraldic coats-of-arms, especially in Germany, well into the 16th century. Renaissance engravers in Germany and Italy were particularly fond of wild men, wild women, and wild families, with examples from Martin Schongauer (died 1491) and Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) among others.

The first element of woodwose is usually explained as from wudu "wood", "forest". The second element is less clear. It has been identified as a hypothetical noun *wāsa "being", from the verb wesan, wosan "to be", "to be alive". The Old English form is unattested, but it would have been *wudu-wāsa or *wude-wāsa. It may also mean a forlorn or abandoned person, cognate with the German "Waise" and Dutch "wees" which both mean "orphan."

Terminology in the Middle Ages was more varied. In Middle English, there was the term woodwose (also spelled wodewose, woodehouse, wudwas etc.).Wodwos occurs in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (ca. 1390). The Middle English word is first attested in the 1340s, in references to the "wild man" decorative artwork popular at the time, in a Latin description of an embroidery of the Great Wardrobe of Edward III, but as a surname it is found as early as 1251, of one Robert de Wudewuse. In reference to an actual legendary or mythological creature, the term is found in the 1380s, in Wycliffe's Bible, translating שעיר (LXX δαιμόνια, Latin pilosi) in Isaiah 13:21 The occurrences in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight date to shortly after Wycliffe's Bible, to ca. 1390.

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