WALK through the Medieval and Renaissance Galleries of the V&A and you might chance upon a chunky oak bracket, once used to support the jettied upper storey of a timber-frame house. It is carved with the figure of a man gripping a large club. In his original position, he would have belligerently eyeballed anyone who approached the house. But look more closely: the body of this medieval bouncer is covered in long, curling hair. He is a ‘woodwose’ or Wild Man, brought from his woodland lair to guard civilised life.
Once you see one Wild Man, you spot him everywhere in medieval art. He strides hairily through the woods in tapestries, brandishes his club from stained-glass panels and pops up
