more obscurity that goes unnoticed. after somehow stumbling upon an interesting website, this morning i left in search of someone called zelený muž ("green man") around the old town. a green man (or "foliate head") is an architectural decorative element consisting of a face surrounded by leaves. the green man can be found all over the world and is quite mysterious but generally believed to come from pagan traditions dealing with vegetation and the coming of spring. above are some of prague's green men that i was able to find. the bottom right is part of the richly ornamented side of the karolinum, the oldest university in the czech republic (1347). he is very special because he is the type called disgorging head, or one that spouts vegetation from his mouth. they all have very distinct personalities, and the aforementioned website has very specific and touching descriptions of prague's green men, quoted from václav cílek.
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