The Green Knight’s Irish Origins: How Bricriu’s Feast Inspired the Arthurian Legend

We all know the story.

It was Christmas Eve, babe, in King Arthur’s court, the Green Knight said to Gawain, won’t see another one, then he grabbed his ax…

Okay, okay, I’ll stop. 

And no, in the original version of the 14th-century Arthurian Legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the gigantic, green-clad figure rides into Camelot atop his green horse not on Christmas Eve but on New Year’s Day.

Granted, Arthur and co. are still celebrating Christmas at the time, and the Green Knight, who arrives with an ax in one hand and a holly branch in the other, asks if anyone would like to partake in a “Christmas game.”

Arthur’s nephew, Sir Gawain, accepts this invitation, and soon finds himself standing over the Green Knight, ax in hand. He lets the ax fall, and with a single stroke, beheads the giant.

Ever so calmly, the Green Knight retrieves his severed head from the floor and, before riding off, reminds Sir Gawain that he must meet him at the Green Chapel in a year and a day so that the game can be completed.

So that the Green Knight can get his chance to return the blow, as had been stipulated.

When his day of reckoning nears, Gawain goes in search of the chapel, but has a slight detour at the castle of a mysterious lord by the name of Bertilak de Hautdesert. When Bertilak goes out hunting each day, his wife attempts to seduce Gawain but to no avail, though he does accept a green sash from her which he keeps a secret.

The next day, Gawain is guided to the Green Chapel and submits himself to the Green Knight. After two fake-outs, the giant brings the ax down upon Gawain’s neck…but only nicks him, a wound that could have been avoided if not for the whole sash incident. Still, Gawain has passed the test. The Green Knight’s game is over.

And after revealing himself to be the lord Bertilak from the castle (twist!), the Green Knight proclaims Sir Gawain to be the “most faultless man on earth.”

Or so the story goes.

But what if the Green Knight of Arthurian legend has another secret identity?

Or rather, what if the character is rooted (sorry) in an earlier literary figure?

Because here’s the thing:

The 14th-century chivalric romance I just so hastily summarized (yes, I know I left a lot out) bares more than a striking resemblance (I can’t help myself) to a much older story. A story that dates back to at least the 8th century.

A story from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.

Pssst. You can watch a video adaptation of this essay right here:

Fled Bricrenn (Bricriu’s Feast)

In the Fled Bricrenn, or Bricriu’s Feast, the scheming Bricriu of the poison tongue brings together three of Ireland’s greatest heroes, Lóegaire Búadach, Conall Cernach (who was featured in my previous article/video on Cernunnos), and Cú Chulainn, with the intention of having them fight over who should receive the Champion’s Portion of the feast.

The heroes face a series of challenges, including one that sees them seeking out a colorful locale, the abode of Yellow. From there the heroes are guided to a loch where they encounter a giant, shape-shifting wizard named the Terror, who proposes that each hero take a turn chopping off his head with an ax on the condition that he be allowed to return the blow the following day. 

In some versions of the tale, Lóegaire and Conall agree to the initial chopping but refuse to submit their own necks to the ax. In other versions, they refuse to participate at all. Regardless, it is Cú Chulainn who is the only hero brave enough to complete the challenge.

The Terror brings the ax down on Cú Chulainn’s neck not once , not twice, but three times, only with each of these strokes the blunt edge of the ax is facing downward.

“The sovranty of the heroes of Erin to Cuchullain,” the Terror declares, “and the Champion’s Portion without contest.”

And while the story could have ended there, Lóegaire and Conall refute the verdict, a recurring theme, and the three heroes travel to the castle of the Munster king Cú Roí mac Dáire for yet another challenge. At the castle, Cú Roí is notoriously absent, leaving his wife, Bláthnat, to put the heroes through their paces. 

And I’d be remiss not to mention that in a separate but related tale, Bláthnat actually has an affair with Cú Chulainn. But I digress. 

After successfully defending Cú Roí’s castle from a bunch of monsters, Cú Chulainn is once again declared worthy of the Champion’s Portion and once again the other heroes refute this result. 

The story finally concludes in Emain Macha, seat of power of the Ulster king Conchobar mac Nessa and his Red Branch warriors. An ax-wielding giant shows up on consecutive evenings, challenging the heroes to yet another round of the beheading game. 

Cú Chulainn, naturally, wins again. Only this time, after striking the hero with the blunt-end of the ax, the giant reveals himself to be none other than Munster king Cú Roi in disguise (twist!).

So there you have it, an extremely condensed version of the Irish tale Bricriu’s Feast. But the parallels between it and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight should seem obvious enough. As should the parallels between the Irish character Cú Roi a.k.a. The Terror and the English character Lord Bertilak a.k.a. the Green Knight.

But is the latter really based on the former?

Because there is one detail here that doesn’t quite square:

Cú Roi’s color scheme.

How the Green Knight Got His Color

In Bricriu’s Feast, Cú Roi, while masquerading as a giant, is described as dressing in gray- or dun-colored garb. The only other color associated with the character is one we’ve mentioned already: yellow.

To quote from the final chapter of Bricriu’s Feast, titled The Champion’s Covenant:

“[T]hey saw a big uncouth fellow of exceeding ugliness drawing nigh them into the hall. To them it seemed as if none of the Ultonians would reach half his height. Horrible and ugly was the carle’s guise. Next his skin he wore an old hide with a dark dun mantle around him, and over him a great spreading club-tree (branch) the size of a winter-shed, under which thirty bullocks could find shelter. Ravenous yellow eyes he had, protruding from his head, each of the twain the size of an ox-vat.”

Now, depending on the specific manuscript (the story appears in several), it is either the Irish term odar or lacht that is used to signify the color of Cú Roi’s mantle. And both of these terms unambiguously mean gray or dun. Indeed, these same terms are used in two other Ulster Cycle tales, which refer to a disguised Cú Roi as “the man of the gray mantle.”

However (and this is an important however), there is an Irish word for gray that can also mean green: glas. And this is precisely the word that is used in a later Irish folktale, The Green Knight of Knowledge, which sees the titular knight challenge a hero to three consecutive games of cards. Upon losing the third game, the hero is given a year and a day to discover the Green Knight’s dwelling place, or else his life will be forfeit.

A similar folktale appears in Wales, this one titled The Green Man of No Man’s Land, in which it is specified that if the hero fails, his life will be forfeit by way of forfeiting his head.

To quote scholar Alice Buchanan:

“All this seems to point to the word glas and its double meaning as the probable reason why the famous Gray Mantle of the Irish saga becomes the green vesture of Arthurian romance.”

For those seeking further etymological evidence for the connection between the British Green Knight and the Irish Cú Roi, consider that in the Champion’s Covenant chapter of Bricriu’s Feast, the disguised Cú Roi is referred to repeatedly (specifically, twenty times) as bachlach, meaning “herdsman” or “churl.”

And is it just me or does bachlach sound conspicuously similar to the name of the Green Knight’s lordly alter ego, Bertilak, which it should be noted, is sometimes given as Bercilak?

Nope, not just me.

Buchanan points out that while the Green Knight’s real name first appeared as Bercelai and Bertolais in printed texts of the Vulgate Merlin, “there is a possibility that the original, French form was Barcilak—about as close an approximation as one could make in French to the Irish sound bachlach.”

Etymology aside, there is also the symbolic nature of these two characters to consider. And in this case that nature is…uh…nature.

Is the Green Knight Based on the Green Man?

Some have argued that both the Green Knight and his Irish predecessor Cú Roi are representations of the Green Man. 

The Green Man, also known as a foliate head, is a design motif consisting of a face surrounded by leaves and/or other plant matter. In some cases there are branches or vines sprouting from the orifices of said face.

And while the term Green Man wouldn’t be coined, at least not in its modern usage, until 1939 by folklorist Lady Raglan, Green Man-esque depictions can be found across cultures as far back as the 2nd century CE, as evidenced by the presence of this sculpture discovered in the ruins of the ancient city of Hatra in modern day Iraq.

Staying in the Middle East, it’s worth mentioning that some scholars have argued that the Islamic figure Al-Khidr, whose name means “The Green One,” may have played a role in inspiring the Green Knight, courtesy of cultural intermingling that took place during the Crusades.

However, given that the Irish story Bricriu’s Feast predates the Crusades, this seems unlikely.

What’s more, despite his verdant moniker, Al-Khidr wasn’t associated with vegetation but with the sea, putting him at odds with Lady Raglan’s reckoning of the Green Man, which sees the motif as a representation of a pagan vegetation/fertility deity, one associated with rebirth and the return of spring.

And that’s the interpretation that some have sought to apply to the Green Knight and Cú Roi. 

The former is the more obvious candidate given his green attire and the holly branch he bears and and his beard that is described as resembling a bush.

But remember, the disguised Cú Roi does carry a giant tree branch into Emain Macha, and earlier in the tale he’s seen wielding a giant club, which is typical of Green Man depictions in English folklore. Then again, Cú Roi may have helped inspire those very depictions, which wouldn’t  become ubiquitous in England until the 16th century.

And when you consider that the character of Cú Roi also predates the first appearances of foliate-head Green Men in Irish and British architecture, which started cropping up (heh) in the early 12th century, it’s hard to peg Cú Roi or his literary descendent the Green Knight as somehow being offshoots (hehe) of this vegetal tradition.

To quote scholar George Lyman Kittredge:

“Whoever gave [the Green Knight] that color first, whether the English poet or some French predecessor, was influenced, of course, by current folk-lore, and that folk-lore may have descended to the innovator in question from primeval ideas about the forces of nature. So much we must grant, but that is all. Neither the Irish author of The Champion’s Bargain nor any of his successors in the line had any notion of associating the challenger with Celtic ‘probably arboreal’ deities, Arician groves, spirits of vegetation, or the annual death and rebirth of the embodied vital principle.”

The counterargument here, put forth by scholar William A. Nitze, is that the author of the Irish myth that paved the way for the Green Knight could have inadvertently been relying on a more ancient, pagan vegetation myth without actually understanding the origin or significance of said myth.

Just as someone today might put up mistletoe at Yuletide/Christmas without understanding the original meaning of that practice. Not you though, of course, because you’ve obviously seen my article/video on the Celtic origins of kissing under the mistletoe.

The Meaning Behind the Myth(s)

Regardless of whether Cú Roi and the Green Knight are derived from some primeval Green Man motif or Wild Man of the Woods motif or some combination thereof, when one goes searching for themes in stories as rich and as detailed as Bricriu’s Feast and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, themes shall be discovered.

And one of the most recognizable themes in both of these tales is the inherent conflict between the natural world and the so-called civilized world. Between conservation and progress.

Cú Roi/the Green Knight can be seen as a manifestation of this duality.

An unkempt giant with a wild sanctum on the one hand, a regal gentleman with a stately castle on the other.

With the Green Knight in particular, this duality is also present in the form of golden threads woven into his green garb, as well as into the sash that’s gifted to Sir Gawain.

Indeed, director David Lowery is on the record as saying that the conflict between nature and culture is a central theme of his film adaptation of the tale, 2021’s The Green Knight.

A film that was, incidentally, or perhaps not incidentally, shot primarily in Ireland.

And a film that opens with the following lines, delivered in voiceover:

“Look, see a world that holds more wonders than any since the Earth was born. And of all who reigned o’er, none had renown like the boy who pulled sword from stone. But this is not that king …nor is this his song.”

According to Lowery, his choice to portray King Arthur and Queen Guinevere as sickly in his film was meant to show that nature, ultimately, will always win out.

So to return to our original question, on the Green Knight’s origins, in a broad, transcendental sort of way, it can be argued that the character was born of nature and thus belongs to the earth.

While in a more grounded, literary way, the character was born in Britain, but still, there’s no denying he has Irish roots.

Just like Shane MacGowan.

See? See how I tied that all together?

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Want to learn more about Arthurian Legend?

I recommend the audiobook King Arthur: History and Legend, written and narrated by Dorsey Armstrong. Use my link to get 3 free months of Audible Premium Plus and you can listen to the full 15-hour audiobook for free.

Want to learn about the darker side of Irish mythology? Check out…

Samhain in Your Pocket

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Neon Druid: An Anthology of Urban Celtic Fantasy

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