The Green Fuse and The Green Knight
I have been musing recently on a Dylan Thomas poem: The force that through the green fuse drives the flower Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees Is my destroyer. It describes a singular, sovereign force, possessing the ability to give life and take it away. Something that controls every movement of this world yet exists beyond it. Is this God? To Thomas, a Christian, perhaps. To me, it instead brings to mind something closer to earth - something which is given mysterious form as the eponymous “gigantic emerald-skinned stranger and tester of men” which haunts David Lowery's subversive retelling of the Arthurian poem, The Green Knight (2021). The supernatural creature appears twice throughout the film, yet pervades its every frame, symbolising both life and death. Summoned by the witch Morgan le Fay to the court of King Arthur on Christmas day, it represents a magical, paganistic intrusion into the “dull sanctum” of the Round Table. It brings with it a cha