The Golden One - Who is the Green Knight？ Survive the Jive and The Golden One Talks Mythology

00:00:00.000 Greetings, so we have found a nice spot in the warmth with some some good old Swedish coffee so

00:00:08.960 anyway we have a lot of things to talk about first and foremost Tom you have released a book a very

00:00:17.040 nice one I shared it on my Instagram it looks like this boom and in it I saw a character that is

00:00:24.440 somewhat familiar to me and this is the Green Knight and the first time I actually heard about

00:00:29.900 the Green Knight was from Warhammer fantasy so there is a faction called Bretonnia which are

00:00:38.420 based upon medieval France plus Arthurian legend and one of these characters are is the Green Knight

00:00:46.220 and I obviously got hooked immediately I was only 14 at the time and I thought that was a really

00:00:51.080 really epic sort of thing but I thought you could elaborate a bit on to my dear subscribers

00:00:58.460 who the Green Knight is and also first I'm sorry I just have to I didn't really give an introduction

00:01:05.320 to Survive the Dive so if anyone isn't aware of Tom I will link his channel below and I definitely do

00:01:11.740 suggest that you subscribe watch all of his videos I watched all of his videos I've gained a good a bit

00:01:17.640 of enlightenment of knowledge from them and I would say that's probably my very favorite channel and

00:01:22.860 I'm not just saying that because he's my mate but because it's it's a good channel so check them out

00:01:29.080 yeah it's mostly it's mostly pagan religion Germanic history DNA and science like about population genetics

00:01:38.240 and so traditionalism and spirituality that's what my channel is about

00:01:43.460 yeah so if you if you like René Gunon Julius Evola if you lay if you like history in general spirituality

00:01:51.680 definitely check out all of his videos will be a good thing you can do now over over Christmas and

00:01:57.680 Yule time so anyway back to the to the topic or the Green Knight yeah who give us he was the

00:02:05.540 well the book that you mentioned is it's got a cartoon you can see as well it's called the spirit

00:02:10.440 of Yule and the reason I wrote the Green Knight into it because the Green Knight didn't exist in

00:02:15.500 pagan times and the the story is about a Christian guy from Victorian times going back into pagan times

00:02:20.760 so the Chris the Green Knights from the time in between early Christian ideas but the reason I included him

00:02:26.760 is because he's in a specific Arthurian story about Christmas so he was a quite an early Christmas figure

00:02:34.360 you could say in that sense and he's very popular in in like in that sense it's very mystical figure

00:02:41.380 the design of the character of what we did or rather Christopher the artist did is based partly on something called the

00:02:48.720 green man which is uh is a different thing but that's like a church masonry uh motif in in England

00:02:56.360 where they in the medieval times they carved this figure whose face was made of leaves and stuff and

00:03:01.840 no one really knows why they had that on these churches but a lot of people want to say that it

00:03:06.000 has a pagan origin but there's no record of any pagan gods that had faces made of leaves anyway but maybe

00:03:12.120 it does but it certainly doesn't correspond to anything in the bible so it's quite mysterious and

00:03:17.600 anyway we decided to merge the green knight and the green man because they were similar and from the

00:03:21.280 same times and kind of mystical figures but the green knight this is the story is from a a story

00:03:29.120 called sagawain and the green knight and it's in middle english so in middle english would be uh

00:03:35.600 which okay if you don't you might imagine you can speak middle english but i if you haven't had any

00:03:42.080 practice with it it's going to be hard so you would read the translation otherwise and there's some great

00:03:45.720 readings online and there's even a cartoon that you can watch online that someone i think the bbc made

00:03:49.480 a long time ago uh and that's really cool to watch even if it's in middle english because you get the

00:03:53.880 picture from the cartoon so i'll try and summarize the story king arthur and his knights it's christmas

00:04:00.280 they're setting around sat around the round table in camelot feasting and enjoying themselves drinking and

00:04:07.320 whatnot and then boom the doors open and a massive green knight with green armor green face everything

00:04:16.200 green riding a green horse just rides right into the court which is not what you do you don't ride

00:04:23.160 horses into court and um challenges everyone there telling them that they're not real christians that

00:04:29.720 they don't follow they're not doing christmas right and uh they're all bad and um insults them basically

00:04:37.400 and uh challenges them insulting their honor in the process saying who will who will accept my challenge

00:04:44.600 and uh only of all the knights only sagawain the virtuous but young and somewhat uh naive knight um

00:04:53.720 um he rises to the challenge and says he will take the green lights challenge and that is that um he

00:05:00.600 will but the green eye has an axe and he says uh you will um you will strike my head with the axe 0.96

00:05:08.920 and then i will strike off yours and then so sir gawain uh does that chops off the green knight's head but 0.96

00:05:17.640 that does the green knight picks up his own head he's still alive and then he says okay now next year this day

00:05:22.280 on christmas i'm gonna do the same to you and then um basically the the whole story then is about

00:05:30.520 what uh gawain is doing to try and avoid uh the inevitable fate the next christmas and to summarize

00:05:39.720 it and ruin it a bit for you this story is a christian morality tale it's about like um

00:05:45.400 um going learning like virtue of sacrifice and and stuff like that and um the short story is he passes

00:05:53.320 the test and uh the green knight is really on the side of the court and he's working for king arthur

00:05:59.560 and it's all a a game to show but the green knight is an interesting figure because green

00:06:05.560 is just as kind of is now was associated with paganism and evil not not now we don't think green is an evil

00:06:12.280 color but green because of its association with paganism in christian europe did have an evil and

00:06:16.600 magical aspect uh and um that is why even though the green knight didn't exist in pagan europe we often

00:06:25.880 like to see him as kind of like a pagan figure and representing somehow paganism although he's a deliverer

00:06:30.520 he's actually testing them according to christian values yeah i always associated him more with um

00:06:36.600 um a force of nature and obviously i always associate pagan things more with nature and more human

00:06:45.400 things more with christianity but obviously the the intermarriage between christianity and uh and

00:06:51.400 paganism always um in europe looks a bit different than it does in in the bible so yeah i suppose he

00:06:58.600 the mythic character of the green knight is um it's not something you would find in in the bible no no

00:07:04.280 no it's very european it's very very very indo-european very indo-european yeah yeah it's it's very

00:07:11.720 british french whatever welsh it probably i mean it's hard to say because obviously the welsh want to claim

00:07:18.200 arthur as uh as their own but many these myths don't appear in not all of them appear in in where in

00:07:24.360 welsh literature uh sagawain and the green knight is written in middle english i mean there's some

00:07:29.320 and wolfram's passable book is is german so i mean arthurian myth and legend it it may have

00:07:37.720 originated the trend in uh celtic speaking um parts of britain but it spread to france to germany it was

00:07:45.560 really it was like the star wars of its day if you i don't like i mean not everyone likes star wars

00:07:52.280 now because of all the horrible uh recent yeah i've actually never even seen it so yeah you're not

00:07:57.160 missing too much but anyway actually even the original star wars was based partially on arthurian

00:08:01.720 literature so arthurian themes are in the original star wars you have i don't want to go too much

00:08:06.440 into star wars obi-wan kenobi is kind of like merlin you know it's like right the young i mean young

00:08:12.600 luke skywalker is kind of like like a passable or gawain or something so yeah these are what was good

00:08:19.640 in the original star wars is only the aspects that are good about it the things that come from eternal you

00:08:23.880 know myths and that's the same with arthurian literature but it typifies the christian high

00:08:30.600 middle ages as uh as julius ever has written in uh his book the mystery of the grail you can see

00:08:37.000 that a lot of themes were from older pagan sources but not they're not saying that they're pagan stories

00:08:42.600 but they have parallels in earlier pagan stories yeah so i suppose at least for me i've always been quite

00:08:49.240 interested in the arthurian legend i think it's very uh mythic and epic and heroic tale and uh since

00:08:55.560 you talk a lot about i know you've made some videos and yet again you can check them out uh but just

00:08:59.800 answer the question right here uh some people have seen also in the film king after from like 10 years

00:09:06.520 ago uh they claim that king arthur came from uh the sarmatians if i'm not mistaken uh okay yeah have you

00:09:14.680 seen the film no but i know about this this um this theory is very old very very old and that's

00:09:20.680 why it's popular but it's not true uh there actually were i've done a talk recently in america and i

00:09:27.720 uploaded it to uh my soundcloud about origin narratives and identity and it explains that actually around

00:09:34.600 the middle ages it was very popular all across europe people wanted to ascribe mythical origins to

00:09:39.480 their people to their races so the french started to say that they were descended from the trojans the welsh

00:09:44.120 also said they're descended from the trojans but later also he said they're simultaneously descended

00:09:47.320 from trojans and jews somehow and uh some of the celts in british arts decided they were descended from

00:09:52.040 the scythians now what do the trojans the jews the civians have in common at that time in the middle

00:09:56.680 ages people know about them that's the basic thing is when they switched to europeans celts and germans

00:10:03.720 switched to a literate culture they lost a lot of their history of what where people came from yeah they

00:10:08.840 had access to very old records of ancient civilizations rome greece the trojan war the

00:10:16.200 ancient hebrews which they learned about through the bible and the civians are mentioned by romans

00:10:19.880 and the hebrews so they're in the bible so the civians are good and suitable source to say where

00:10:25.000 you come from so that is why you find in these medieval texts people saying that why did uh snorris

00:10:30.200 sturluson say that the gods came from troy why did the french say that they came from troy why did the

00:10:34.600 the celts start saying they were syrian and not because they were because we can see from dna that

00:10:38.440 they weren't but because uh that was uh prestigious it's good for them to say that and you should watch

00:10:44.200 that talk if you want to hear more about that yeah and also speak on this during the um 1600s i suppose

00:10:51.160 it was uh i might have the dates wrong here but i know that the the swedish empire or kingdom then

00:10:57.400 they promoted quite heavily their gothic past and i know that other european nations also did that

00:11:03.080 so spain for example harken back to the visigothic path because that was a kind of prestige thing

00:11:08.200 we come from these brave uh people who restructured europe so it is something that you've seen in

00:11:15.320 in different times as well this uh you know claiming a past but the differences with that is that the

00:11:20.920 spain spain the visigoths were in spain yeah it's true it's true and also the goths do come from

00:11:26.520 scandinavia originally so the swedes do have a connection to the goths yeah so that's slightly

00:11:31.640 different but what store goddessism that um trend in the 1600s in sweden where they celebrated the

00:11:37.560 goths a lot that what was untrue about it is that they started to say that the goths did certain

00:11:41.960 things that the goths never did they kind of made up the idea that that upsala was the center of the

00:11:46.760 world civilization and and uh hi i didn't actually know about that oh they made up all kinds of crazy

00:11:51.880 stuff but that i mean that yeah the goths weren't uh the invent the goths were the inventors of all the

00:11:58.600 world civilizations we was inventors yeah we was goths basically but but they were they were goths 0.91

00:12:05.480 but the goths weren't everything else yeah but the important thing here is that you can definitely see

00:12:11.640 the importance of history like for identity and people like they need to have a strong sense of

00:12:17.720 who they are and this is obviously something i've talked about before that in order to if we're talking

00:12:22.840 about the soullessness of the modern world in in the western world a lot of that can probably stem

00:12:28.680 from the fact that the the tree has been cut the roots have been cut we have no idea who we are we

00:12:33.720 have no idea who our ancestors were where we come from anything yeah so in my view if we want to revive

00:12:39.320 europe yeah rekindle the spirit of like who we are yeah i think that's what well history is a large

00:12:45.320 part of the history and that it gets people interested in history is to know who you are where you come

00:12:49.880 from finding this stuff whether you're researching your ancestry or researching ancient kings it's uh

00:12:54.520 it's has a similar motive behind it it reinforces your sense of self grounds you in the process of

00:12:59.960 time because life is just the experience of time of being within time so history is a major part of

00:13:05.080 that and uh it should help you to focus your sense of self and being yeah and this is also something uh

00:13:14.200 uh i've said before is that if you view sweden for example in a historic context going back to the

00:13:20.280 gothic age and the viking age and the carolian age um if you view a certain nation or civilization in that

00:13:26.920 context you're more prone to actually care about what happens after you're dead um whereas if you only

00:13:33.320 if you don't care you don't know that we were goths or whatever um yeah why would you care what happens

00:13:39.720 in in 20 years so uh getting a good view and understanding history of myths and legends

00:13:46.680 everything very important stuff and that's also yet again why i appreciate your channel because you

00:13:51.000 delve into this myths so much and uh especially like we talked a bit about the wild hunt just uh the

00:13:56.840 previous video um getting that sense of epicness and heroicness into a self-improvement game very useful

00:14:04.920 and um yeah yeah yeah i think incorporating these myths and our history into our own rituals whether

00:14:10.840 you're going to the gym or whatever you're doing it's important because it you know it it mustn't be

00:14:16.600 history shouldn't be an us and them sensation there's a constant chain leading us right back through time

00:14:23.800 to our ancestors and forwards to our descendants and that's why where that's where our role is is to

00:14:29.240 pass on that flame to the next generation yeah and in our case maybe rekindle it because yeah

00:14:34.680 it's a lot of going out a bit yeah it does it needs a bit more fuel i think yeah it does indeed

00:14:40.920 so anyway we wish you a um good jul and merry christmas from a snowy sweden god jul

The Golden One - December 24, 2018

Who is the Green Knight？ Survive the Jive and The Golden One Talks Mythology

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