TenKeep

GK Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote fifty-three Father Brown short stories about a familiar figure in old school games - the cleric. One story, The Green Man , teems with green men, and reveals much about Father Brown's wisdom. *** First, an exhibit of green men in The Green Man: In the story's coastal setting, the Green Man is the name of a 'shabby fisherman's tavern.'  Another green man is Admiral Sir Michael Craven, postmortem, with a stab wound in his heart: 'He was found,' said the Inspector, 'in that pool by the coast...all covered with green scum and weeds so as to be almost unrecognizable.' Still another is Father Brown, horror-struck, when he saw Admiral Craven's killer: I suddenly felt sick and turned green. I dare say; as green as the Green Man. A green woman is Admiral's Craven's surviving daughter - Olive.  With the killer unconfined, fearfulness overtook Olive's thinking, and more green men appeared! The Green Man became ...

In some forgotten places, a lazy visitor might find long tables where an antiquarian had labeled and displayed shards, stones and arrowtips of a fading past. Here, extracted from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , find these fragments of decapitation, and marvel . *** The Green Knight's Head In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - with an ax - Sir Gawain struck a 'shattering' blow, and separated the Green Knight's torso from its head. The fair head fell from the neck, struck the floor / And people spurned it as it rolled around. (translator, Brian Stone) In 14th Century English, "spurned" would mean 'struck away with the foot.' Notwithstanding all, the Green Knight grabbed the gruesome 'head by the hair,' 'pointed the face' to King Arthur's court, and the head hideously 'spoke with its mouth,' "Be prepared to perform what you promised, Gawain / Seek faithfully til you find me.../ Go to the ...