In midwinter, the verdancy of the rocky chasm known as Lud’s Church is enough to make the eyes ache. Green on green; emerald on viridian; malachite on jade. Liverworts, mosses, lichens, ferns, tiny herbaceous plants and crevice-rooted trees.
Legend grows thicker still. The story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (written down in the 14th century but doubtless older) tells of a year-long duel between a Knight of the Round Table and a mysterious green giant. In the first round, at a Yule feast in Arthur’s court, Gawain strikes his opponent’s head clean from his shoulders, only for the giant to collect it, and goad the young hero to travel to a mysterious Green Chapel a year hence and receive a single blow in return. Gawain honours the terms and arrives at the chapel on New Year’s Day to meet his fate.
In pigmentation and regenerative power, the Green Knight is a variation of what we now call the Green Man. Others include the Oak King and Holly King, lords of summer and winter respectively, locked in an endless and perfectly matched battle for supremacy. A version of the latter has been ultra-processed for our time – his hair and beard now snow white, and his robe a festive red.
Is Lud’s Church the Green Chapel of the story? The dialect used by the anonymous medieval storyteller is certainly local. Then there’s the connection in the names – I’m struck by how ecclesiastical the interior of the chasm feels, even on a windy day. The outside world is muted, the soundscape an intimate plink and tsshh of dripping water on rock and leaf litter. White splashes of hardened candle wax speak of unofficial ceremony, and in a narrow side aisle, a chocked boulder creates a window of green and gold to rival any stained glass.
On one wall, if you’ve a mind to see it, is a massive, craggy visage with heavy brows, blunt nose, full lips and a square chin. It glowers out, facing down a smaller profile with a pointed nose on the opposite wall. Above them, the branches of trees growing on each side vie for space – a twisted oak on the west, and on the east, directly atop the giant’s head, a fine young holly.
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