The Green Man of Knowledge is a Scottish folktale collected in 1954Anderson, Graham. Fairytale in the Ancient World. Routledge, 2002. p. 77. . and published in 1958, in the academic journal Scottish Studies.Bruford, Alan. The Green Man of Knowledge and Other Scots Traditional Tales: From Tape-recordings in the Archives of the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh. Aberdeen University Press, 1982. pp. 104–105. . It is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 313, "Girl Helps the Hero Flee" or "The Magic Flight", in that the hero falls under the power of an antagonist and forced to perform impossible tasks, but he is secretly helped by the antagonist's maid or magical daughter, and both escape from his captor by throwing behind objects to create obstacles that hinder his pursuit.
Source The tale was collected from informant Geordie Stewart, a Scottish Traveller, who learned it from his grandfather.
Summary An old widow has a foolish son named Jack, who sits by the ashes and plays cards with his pet, a collie-dog. When he is 21 years old, he leaves home to seek his fortune elsewhere and goes to the "Land of Enchantment", where – the narrator describes – animals and birds can talk. Jack meets a speaking robin, then goes to a thackit cot by the roadside, where he eats some porridge and spends the night. The cot's owner, an old woman, advises him to let people talk to him first.
Later, Jack hears some bells and reaches a village, where he spends time in an inn. He sees some card-playing men, among which a person in green. Jack plays with the gentleman in green and wins. The gentleman in green says his name is Green Man of Knowledge, who lives in a place "east o' the moon and west o' the stars". Jack decides to follow the man further into the Land of Enchantment, despite the innkeeper's warnings that the Green Man of Knowledge will lead him to certain death.
On the road, Jack passes by the house of another old woman, who gives him a piece of knitting he uses and reaches year another old woman's house. The third old lady says Jack is close to the Green Man of Knowledge's castle, and warns him that the bridge leading to the castle is a trap, since it turns into a spider's web, so he must secure the help of the Green Man's youngest daughter, the most powerful of the three, by stealing her garments when she becomes a white bird to bathe in the river with her elder sisters. It happens thus, and Jack reaches the castle of the Green Man of Knowledge. That night, the Green Man's youngest daughter comes to Jack's room and tells him "he spelled her", and that she loves him, so she will help him in whatever her father asks of him.
The next day, the Green Man orders Jack to perform three tasks: first, to retrieve the Green Man's wife's golden ring, which fell in a dry well – the Green Man's youngest daughter helps Jack by turning herself into a ladder to reach the bottom of the well, which Jack climbs to reach the ring. However, he misses one step. Jack returns the ring, and later the Green Man's daughter reveals only her pinkie finger was broken, which she hid with a glove during dinnertime. The next day, the Green Man orders Jack to build a new castle for him – his youngest daughter helps Jack again. Lastly, Jack's task is to clear a wood of ants.
At last, the Green Man's daughter convinces Jack to run away from her father, and advises him to choose a lame mule (which is herself, under a new form) as his mount. During the flight, the Green Man comes after the pair, and his daughter asks Jack to check her ear for anything to deter her father: first, he finds a drop of water, which creates a lake; next, a small stone that becomes hills and mountains; lastly, a spark of fire, which morphs into a conflagration behind them that consumes the Green Man. Safe at last, the Green Man's daughter and Jack leave the Land of Enchantment and prepare to go to his village. The Green Man's daughter asks Jack to wait for her for a year and a day, and he cannot be kissed by anyone, lest he forgets about her and their adventures. However, as soon as Jack goes home, his collie dog licks his face, and he forgets about the Green Man's daughter. Jack uses the fortune he gained from the Green Man to become rich and buys himself a large place. He sets his sights on a miller's daughter as a bride for him. On the eve of his wedding, he sees a maiden in tatters and hires her as a servant. The maiden cooks and cleans.
On the wedding day, noticing the priest's delay, the servant girl suggests she distracts the guests with a number: she owns a wooden rooster and a wooden hen that can talk. She acts out a scene with the wooden birds, replaying Jack's adventures with her, in an effort to jog his memory. Jack remembers and marries the Green Man's youngest daughter.Bruford, Alan. The Green Man of Knowledge and Other Scots Traditional Tales: From Tape-recordings in the Archives of the School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh. Aberdeen University Press, 1982. pp. 11–27. .Anderson, Graham. Fairytale in the Ancient World. Routledge, 2002. pp. 77–78. .
Analysis Tale type The tale is classified in the international Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index as tale type ATU 313, "The Girl as Helper in the Hero's Flight",Ashliman, D. L. A Guide to Folktales in the English Language: Based on the Aarne-Thompson Classification System. Bibliographies and Indexes in World Literature, vol. 11. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1987. pp. 62-63. .Bruford, Alan; MacDonald, Donald A.. Scottish traditional tales. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2003 . p. 447. or "The Magic Flight".
Motifs Scholarship stated that the colour green is associated with supernatural beings in British and Celtic traditions, and also the colour of clothing for the fairy folk in these regions.Randolph, Vance. The Devil's Pretty Daughter. Columbia University Press, 1955. p. 215.Hulbert, J. R. "Syr Gawayn and the Grene Knyʒt". In: Modern philology Vol. 13 (1915/16). p. 456.
The swan maiden Folklorist Stith Thompson pointed that the formula of the ATU 313 tale is often combined with the character of the swan maiden.Thompson, Stith. The Folktale. University of California Press. pp. 88–90. .
In the same vein, William Bernard McCarthy reported that in Irish tradition the swan maiden is frequently appears in tale type ATU 313 ("The Master Maid", "The Magical Flight", "The Devil's Daughter").McCarthy, William Bernard. Cinderella in America: a book of folk and fairy tales. The University Press of Mississippi. 2007. p. 386. . In that regard, Norwegian folklorist Reidar Thoralf Christiansen suggested that the presence of the Swan maiden character in tale type ATU 313 "could be explained by the circumstance that in both cycles a woman with supernatural powers plays a leading part".
Variants Scotland Folklorist Katharine Mary Briggs reported a similar story from Scotland, titled Green Sleeves. In this tale, the prince loves to gamble and one day gambles with a man named Green Sleeves, who wins the bet and in return asks for the youth as an apprentice/slave/servant. To find Green Sleeves's house, the prince fetches the swan garments of a bathing maiden, named Blue Wing, who is one of the daughters of Green Sleeves.Briggs, Katharine M. An Encyclopedia of Fairies: Hobglobins, Brownies, Bogies and Other Supernatural Creatures. New York: Pantheon Books. 1976. pp. 202–204. . According to Hamish Henderson, Green Sleeves was the first "Scots-English version", collected by author Peter Buchan on 4 February 1829, but was only published in 1908.
Wales In a Welsh Gypsy tale, Ō Grīnō Mūrš or The Green Man of Noman's Land, a youth named Jack is great at gambling. One day, he plays against a gentleman named Green Man who lives in No Man's Land, but loses. The Green Man threatens the youth with decapitation if he does not find his castle in a year and a day. Jack, his life at risk, journeys on horseback to an elder woman's house. This first old woman blows a horn and summons the people, then the birds, to see if anyone knows the location of No Man's Land. With little success, the old woman directs her to one of her sisters. The same happens to the second sister, so she directs him to the eldest sister. The eldest and third sister summons all people and all birds of the world through a horn, but the eagle is missing. The eagle comes soon after and reveals it has flown from there. The eldest sister then advises Jack to ride her horse to a lake and wait there for the Green Man's daughters to come to bathe in the shape of white birds; they will cast off their feathers and become humans, and he should steal the feathers of the third daughter. The youth follows the old woman's instructions: Jack steals the youngest's feathers and promises to return them if she carries him to her father's castle over the lake. The girl gets her feathers back and warns Jack not to reveal she was the one who carried him over to her father's house. And so it happens: Jack is flown over by the white bird and reaches the Green Man's castle. The Green Man greets him and orders him to perform tasks: first, to clean out the stables; then, to cut down large trees before midday; next, to build a barn and to thatch its roof with feathers. The Green Man's youngest daughter performs the tasks and tells Jack not to tell her father about her deeds. The fourth task is for Jack to go to a mountain and fetch an egg a bird laid there. The youngest daughter guides him: he is to throw a shoe on the lake and it will become a boat; then, to climb the mountain, she will turn her fingers into ladder steps, and Jack is to step on each one on the way up. Jack misses one of the steps and the girl's finger is broken, but they get the egg. The next day, the Green Man's youngest daughter tells Jack that the last task is for him to choose her three times from a flock of three white birds that will fly overhead three times. Jack identifies the correct bird and the Green Man declares that he can marry his daughter."Welsh Gypsy Folk-Tales collected and edited by John Sampson". In: Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. New series. vol. 1 (1907–1908). pp. 258–270.Groome, Francis Hindes. Gypsy Folk-Tales. London: Hurst & Blackett. 1899. pp. 254–255.Williams-Ellis, Amabel. Gypsy folk tales. London: Pan Books, 1973. pp. 89–101.
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