John the woodwose?
To continue with the topic of the wodewose/ woodwose [ FT320:72], I may have a possible explanation of the association with baptismal fonts. At the beginning of December 2014, I was able to view the interior of the Russian Orthodox church of Saint John the Baptist in Narrabundah, ACT, Australia. The church contains a number of icons including a Black Madonna, and the upper walls feature exquisite late-20th century Greek-style murals, scenes from the life of Jesus on the right and those of St John the Baptist on the left.
As I was studying these scenes, I realised that one of the pictorial attributes of St John was his goathair cilice. This hair shirt was consistently depicted as a blue undergarment covered by his green robes, the hair on the shirt falling in ordered waves. Initially, I thought that the woodwoses described in Matt Salusbury’s woodwose article [ FT318:28-33] were representations of St John; however, once I did some research, I could see that this was not the case. In his iconic representation, St John always has his robes over his hair shirt, which is obviously clothing; he frequently carries a cross and may have wings as well. A good example of this icon can be viewed at iconreader.wordpress.com. Comparing this to the woodwoses, they appear to be hairy, unwinged men who carry clubs.
In Christian ideology, as well as foreshadowing the coming of Christ, St John is the first of the Green Martyrs, those saints who chose to struggle with their faith in the wilderness. In the aspect of the woodwose as a warrior for God, is it possible that in their association with baptismal fonts, in particular, they represent St John the Baptist?
While I was researching this, I stumbled across more images of ‘woodwosettes’ as mentioned by Angus Crowe [ FT319:73], this time in tapestries (specifically on the website polarbearstale.blogspot.com.au). In these cases, the women also have their breasts exposed, although there were plenty of other indicators of their gender. Also, in these tapestries, both the woodwoses and the woodwosettes appear to be wearing hairy clothes rather than being hairy in and of themselves. Catherine Gilbert By email