Holly Charms

On green knights, and autumn, and bells, and death

NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS.

Now this bell tolling softly for another,
says to me, Thou must die.

—

Autumn always takes me by surprise. Every year, I think I’ll be ready for it, and every year, I’m startled by its violence. You can’t walk into a store without orange shouting at you from every shelf: pumpkin-colored mugs and towels and notebooks, while shelves display a cornucopia of foods that never needed an introduction to pumpkin spice. Friends have gone into ecstasies over sweater season, and cooler weather, and fall colors. Coffee shops have the same sugary latte flavors listed on their boards. The craze has even attacked the trees, which now wear coats of crimson, saffron yellow, and maroon.

Meanwhile, I miss the summer. How can I not? Summer is golden light and heat and saltwater and sandals; summer is clover and driving down the Interstate. Summer is not cold, not dark. I am a summer child, by birth, by temperate, and by temperature, which is to say, I have thin skin when it comes to the cold. Anything under seventy and sunny and I start to shiver and reach for thick sweatshirts. Like a cat, I could lie on the floor in a beam of light for hours, and I love the first sunburnt flush of summer.

All that golden heat dissipates under the first chilling breath of fall. Leaves that glowed green begin to wither as cold lops off the forest’s head. Darkness creeps earlier and earlier into the evening, until it is 6:30 and I am in the kitchen wondering why I feel so tired. Without sunlight, I wither, and none of autumn’s glories can outweigh the slow sapping of my energy as the day contracts.

Give me a week of bright mornings and warm afternoons, and I can move mountains. By the end of summer, I have collected jobs and hobbies and friendships like shells picked up along a sea-glass shore; as summer shifts to autumn, and winter swallows both, I begin to drop these shells into a bucket, listen to them clink one-by-one against the battered plastic, abandon them until summer returns. I can carry less in the colder months. In fact, I feel like a different person: smaller, slower, quieter, more mournful, though whether I mourn the loss of warmth and light, or, like Márgarét, grieve the golden groves unleaving, or miss the fire that animates my summer self, or mourn for none of these at all, but something older, and deeper, something I cannot put into words—I never really know.

It’s strange; in many ways, my life doesn’t change much from season to season. I think of a serf in the Middle Ages, his days shaped by the cycle of seeds and sunlight, marked by feast days and the shift in constellations. In contrast, my life moves on a more monotonous track, like a machine that runs the same circle, over and over, and sometimes jerks to a stop until I kick it and it grinds itself back into motion. In the fall, it takes a bigger kick to get the machine going again. Sometimes it feels like every kick I give, it gives one back, kick for kick, until it almost seems worth it to let the machine run down and rust. I’m never sure what keeps me kicking. Perhaps the thought that someday, it will be summer once again.

—

Here is a story about a knight in the autumn dark.

It is almost Samhain, and as he rides past the mounds, he shudders, and signs himself with the cross. Dark gates are open; the threshold to the Otherworld is thin that night. He half thinks he smells the dead. The air, at least, is dead; dead too are the trees, which scratch the twilight sky like curling cat’s claws. Behind him lies King Arthur’s court, full of hearth fire and homely faces, barricaded with hollyhocks and torchlight against the ghostly hands that creep along the frosted earth and clutch at Gawain’s horse—or are those only shadows?

He is riding to his death.

He remembers that day, at the new year’s break, when the stranger had come to Camelot. There, the Round Table, there Sir Kay, with the steward’s keys, there Sir Lancelot in silver-white, there Sir Peredur, and Sir Bedivere with the eagle emblem, and there, at their heart, the king himself, ablaze in red and gold. The mood was merry, yet no one ate. Such was Arthur’s custom: not to eat until he had heard some strange tale, or word of a new adventure.

He had not long to wait that night, before a page approached him, bowed, and said, “My lord, a strange man stands in the courtyard and asks an audience.”

“Send him in,” was Arthur’s command, and then, aside to Lancelot, with a smile, “Here, perchance, is adventure to bring in our year.”

—

The other day, I took a walk. This autumn, Tennessee has kept its summer heat, and I can’t pretend I’m mad about it. I like sweaters, crisp mornings, and mugs of steaming apple cider, but I’d happily trade these little things if it means that summer fortifies itself for a few more days against the swallowing cold. The light is slipping, though. I go to bed earlier and earlier, but I have not yet slipped into that Otherworld, the shadow world where I am half myself. Last year, I lived in that world for months before the daylight finally returned in a rush of daffodils.

Thankfully, it is still warm outside. As I walked, I passed house after house where yards were packed with skeletons, or ghosts, or murderous clowns. I dislike Halloween decor for aesthetic reasons—I think it’s ugly, and I resent that I have to look at it. When I’m walking, I want to see and think about trees. Your grotesque plastic witch spoils my view of the beech and the fir.

But how can I judge? I too grow more pagan as we move closer and closer to All Hallow’s Eve, though I don’t display it in my yard as a séance of fake cobwebs and cheap statuettes. But every fall, I think again of the old Celtic traditions: how they bound mistletoe above the door and lay holly around their house to ward off the spirits of the dark. The Yule log, the scarlet berries, the herbs baked into bread— protection. For they felt, as I do, the haunting press of winter against their houses. The line is clearly drawn. By the hearth, I am safe, but outside…Do not go outside, and if you must, take fire, take rowan, take charms. They knew, as we have forgotten, that you should not summon the darkness, but try to stave off its sure advance. We ring our yards with ghosts. They burned bonfires to keep away the walkers from the Otherworld.

—

“I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.” Henry David Thoreau, Walden

—

Under the hooves of Gawain’s horse, frost cracks, and in the crunch and steady canter, he hears echoes of those footsteps, which had rattled Arthur’s walls like rocks dropped in a dry well. Into the hall had strode a stranger, such as the court had never seen. He stood as tall as a grandfather oak, his shoulders as wide as its broad boughs, his arms corded like its thick trunk, his hair wild and curled like its crown, and all over, his hair and his garments and even his skin, he was as green as the summer oak leaf. He carried no sword, and wore no helmet or hauberk. In one hand, he clutched holly boughs, jagged and jumbled, a tangle of green. In the other—a hand the full size of Gawain’s stout shield—he held an axe. Almost the height of a man was its stave, and each blade formed a fan like the wide tail of some water beast, which breaches the waves for a breath before vanishing.

—

Here is another picture of a knight. He rides through a forest, where trees and crags weave around each other until wood and stone melt into the same mass of shadow. Beside his horse runs a dog, its nose pointed ahead, scenting something strange. His steed takes slow, steady steps, ears pricked up, listening. In its mane and tail, someone has twined holly leaves, or maybe oak. Who? A squire, perhaps. Or some young girl, who snuck down to the stable to wish her favorite stallion farewell. Or was it the knight himself? Did he know he would need protection wrapped around him in those dark woods? He has tied a foxtail around his lance. How many circles of safety, in red and green, has he spun around himself?

He rides on; he rides on. Something flickers beside him. Does he dare turn his head? In the picture, he looks only onward—but from resolution, or from fear of what stands beside, and worse, behind him? Can he see glimpses of it? The white of bone. The cobweb beard. The twisting knot of scales that pushes, pulsing, through socket and leftover flesh. Does he hear a second pair of hooves, or see the grey mare’s grin as he glances at the ground?

Perhaps he can stand these flashes of the decaying corpse, with the hourglass it shakes as it rides beside him, so long as he does not turn—like Orpheus, not to turn—and look at the horned and misshapen thing that shuffles behind him on lurching, cloven hooves. He can hear it whisper, though, and at the words, he grips his foxtail more tightly.

What words, you ask? I cannot say. They are not my words. They are not your words. But like Odysseus, it would have been better if he had stopped his ears with wax than to hear those words.

The picture is Albrecht Dürer’s etching, The Knight, Death, and the Devil. Like the story of Sir Gawain, it can be read in many ways. Is the knight steadfast, or naive, as he rides on without confronting either of the two phantoms at his side? His horse seems to move so slowly. The foxtail tied around his lance—is it for protection, or is it, as foxes so often are, a symbol of treachery? Perhaps Death and the Devil are not his enemies, but his allies. Perhaps he rides in their company.

By the dog’s paws, a lizard slinks over the forest floor. What does it mean?

—

With the rustle of holly leaves, the stranger addressed them: “Who is the king of this court they call Camelot? Its knights are well-known, and the deeds they have done, and long have I ridden to encounter their lord.”

His look fell like lightning on each knight in the hall. Then answering, Arthur arose from his seat, and the firelight glowed on his beard and his robes. “I am the lord of these halls, and these knights, and well I am pleased to hear what you say, that Camelot’s deeds have won praise in wide lands.”

Though only half height of the stranger he stood, yet as his equal the king gave reply. His men, and fair Guinevere, in her seat by Gawain, sat straighter and steadied their gaze as they heard how Arthur replied without fear, in spite of the visage of the fey-man he addressed.

“Now tell me,” continued the king, “What brought you to Camelot? Are you a knight? Come you to feast with us, and share in our food, or for some unkindlier cause?”

“A knight am I, with halls of my own—with horses, and hounds, and hawks for the hunt. Neither for feasting nor fights have I come—” cracking a smile like a split in the face of a cliff— “but for a game, to make dark Yule days light.”

He took a step forward and the sound battered their seats like a boat dashed on rocks. Then raising his axe, he set forth a challenge: “Let any knight willing accept now this wager—whatever stroke given, to take back the same. Let him with my axe give a blow as he can, then receive, stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound, from my hand.”

The Green Knight’s bright eyes darted over the crowd, but silence like snowfall covered the men where they sat, smothered by fear. One look at the giant, at his broad neck and huge hands—who could ensure that their strength could match his?

Then Arthur, still standing, unclasped his cape, and tossing it onto the seat he’d abandoned, stepped down the dais to face the fey-man. “Never shall anyone say that the company of Camelot shrank from a challenge. Give over your axe—I will engage in this wagering game you’ve suggested.”

—

On my walk, I had just turned a street corner and started up a hill, when I met a woman. She had a dog with her, curly and golden, pulling at its leash, nose pointed ahead. I smiled and nodded as I passed her, as I always try to do when I meet a stranger on the sidewalk. I would’ve walked on, but she stopped me.

“Excuse me,” she said. Her dog panted, snapped its drooling tongue back into its mouth, and pulled itself into the grass. “Do you live in this neighborhood?”

“Uh, close, yeah.” Her eyes were red. Was she shaking?

“You know—?” and she named a local trailhead.

I didn’t, but I nodded. I’m the kind of person who pretends to know things that I don’t, because asking for explanations embarrasses me. It’s not the worst habit I have with people. And the name did sound familiar.

“I just—I need you to know—” she was shaking, and her voice wavered— “I just saw it on the news. The police just arrested a man over there. He went after a girl, and when she resisted him, he shot her.”

My own heart sped up, like someone had kicked it into a faster pace. Both sympathy and memory were yelling at my body to take off and run. “He had a gun?”

“At the park, yes. And I just—I have a daughter.”

I knew what she meant. It’s the first thought after we hear someone has died. I have a daughter. She’s the same age. It could have been her.

“I wanted to tell you—because you’re a young woman, and you live here.” Again, the unspoken thought: it could have been her, or it could have been you. You’re a young woman. You’re her age. You never walk alone after dark, and you carry your key chain, ringed with your own tools of protection, but it could have been you. He had a gun.

“Thank you for telling me.” I wanted to offer her a hug. Instead, I tried to make my voice as gentle as possible and to meet her eyes, which were wet with tears. “That must be so hard for her family.”

“Yes.” She started up the sidewalk again, her dog at her heels, but as she passed me, she glanced at the chain above my neckline and added, “I’ll be sending them prayers.”

I think I said something along the same lines. I wish I had better words for moments like that—more wisdom, or comfort to offer. I was halfway home when I realized I could’ve offered to pray with her, there on the sidewalk. I hoped it helped her to tell someone; I hope she felt that there were now two of us, carrying the same weight alongside the girl’s family, as if we could take a share of the death instead.

—

“Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” John Donne, Meditation 17.

—

From Gawain’s side came a gasp—slight, like the whisper of wind lightly moaning as it blows between chinks in the castle’s strong walls. Guinevere moved not at all, face paler than ice, and eyes frozen on the form of her lord. Yet no cry came from her lips, no plea to halt Arthur, unwilling she should shame him in front of his court. Few things could strike Gawain’s heart like the weakness of women. Most courteous knight in the land, they all said, his chivalry always a circle which shielded the ladies like a girdle of graciousness.

The scrape of a chair—his, though Lancelot had also half-risen, his eyes on the queen—and calling to Arthur, he came to the king. “My liege, I beg you—allow me to play as your pawn, winning you glory as a knight of your hall. The honor all yours, but I as your stand-in to enter this wager with the strength of my hands.”

Pleased at his courtesy—for who of his knights could spin words sweet as Gawain’s?—Arthur gave his approval and returned to his seat.

“What is your name?” asked the giant of Gawain.

“Sir Gawain, son of Gwyar, and knight of the table where King Arthur reigns. Your challenge is odd—remind me of its terms, for a game where the rules are unclear is a trap for man’s ruin.”

Then repeated the giant to the knight at his feet: “If, you are willing, by turns we trade strokes. First with my axe give a blow as you can, then receive, stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound, from my hand.”

“Then I agree,” said Gawain, “and swear to abide by the conditions you’ve set.” For he knew his strength, certain of a severing stroke from his hand.

The Green Knight then gave over his great axe to Gawain and knelt on the ground, sweeping the tangle of hair from his neck to uncover the emerald skin. It took all Gawain’s strength to raise up the weapon, its weight more than that of a man. In the firelight it flashed. Then it fell.

—

The woman had glanced at my necklace, before she replied. Perhaps I can’t judge my neighbors too harshly for their Halloween decorations, for around my neck I keep my own pendant Death, and it too is gruesome. The delicate silver forms a man, half-naked and gaunt, contorted in a position of excruciating pain. Tiny as the metalwork is, you can see the gash of his mouth, open in an unheard cry. You can make out the holes ripped in his hands and feet. And, like the skeletons in my neighbor’s yard, his body covers the tree on which he hangs.

—

Green hair and green beard flowed like green water over the stone as the Green Knight’s head rolled on the floor, struck from its neck like the bud of a flower snapped from its stem. Blood poured from the wound, bright red staining the green cloth below, the colors opposed like a holly bough’s berries and leaves. Gawain stepped back from the fountain of gore and let the head of the axe drop with a clatter on the stones at his feet. His breath burned in his chest from wielding the weapon, but with a bright look he turned to his lord, eager for praise for the strength of his arm.

Arthur stood stricken, eyes not on his nephew but the horror behind. The body, splattered in blood which still ran from the wound, lurched to its feet, and with one of its hands—the other still clutching the branch of green leaves—picked up its head by the crown of its hair. Turning it like a lantern to look at Gawain, the dead eyes rolled open, and the bloody mouth moved: “In a year and a day, let us meet in my lands. And what you have given, you in return will receive—stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound.”

Then he vanished from the hall, leaving Gawain with the axe handle gripped in his hands. The echo of horse’s hooves shook the castle walls. But when Arthur rushed to the arrowslit to look over the courtyard, he saw nothing—not a hint of green in the shadow and the snow. And still the ghostly gallop rang out around them.

It is All Hallow’s Eve, and Gawain rides to keep his vow, past the dark mounds and through weird lands. As he rides, he works the reins in his hands like the beads of a rosary and asks the blessing of Mary, Mother of God. It is her favor for his soul he seeks, not the protection of his body, for Gawain knows that he is riding to his death.

—

It has been a season of death. All mine; the bell tolling for me. I have no idea how to hold my death, how to wear it, what it means. I am grappling with a giant I do not understand. This year, it is not just the sunlight that the autumn days have swallowed.

There is another story about Gawain, from the French tradition this time. He is angrier in those tales, less courteous, quicker to strike. He has captured a knight, beaten him in battle, and, on his knees in front of Sir Gawain, the knight begs for mercy. Beside him, the knight’s lady pleads for his life. Maybe she sobs, maybe she wraps her thin arms around Sir Gawain’s armored one and he pushes her away, maybe she tries to remind him of his chivalric code. It does no good. He raises his sword arm.

She throws herself in front of her lord.

Gawain pulls the trigger. (What words did the Devil whisper in his ear?)

Maybe it is for this sin that the Green Knight comes to cleanse Camelot. (You’re a young woman, Guinevere. He had a gun. She could have been you.) On whose head does the axe fall? On the one who deals the first swing. Gawain was quick to swing, and he receives it back, stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound.

Dürer’s knight rides on, bound with holly and scarlet fox fur, eyes straight ahead as Death stalks beside him. I am more like Gawain, swinging at Death, swinging at life. If I can strike first, strike harder, cut off the giant’s head, steal a secret from his wife, bind myself with magic, then maybe, when the sunlight fades and the darkness wraps its coils around my window, I can hack the shadows from my threshold.

It never works. For every swing of the axe in my hands, Death gives back, stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound. And worse still, with every slash from the glinting steel in my grip, I give death life. I birth it; like a Hydra, I lop off its head, and it stands and looks me in the eye again. I strike at death—I pull the trigger—some other voice is whispering behind my back, laughing like it was his idea—and if the bell tolls, it tolls because of me.

If I am all I have, there is no hope. I am swallowed by the cold and dark.

—

Here is one more story about a knight. You’ve heard it before; I’ve told it a hundred times already.

It is Samhain, and he is riding towards the mounds. Dark gates are open; the threshold to the Otherworld is thin that night. He is counting on it. He has a wager to keep—for what is given, in return will be received. He needs no holly leaves, no mistletoe, for in his hands he carries the truest tree charms, the wounds still fresh, the circles stabbed through his palms in front of a campfire last night. For what is given, in return will be received. And Death has already had its swing. It is his turn now, stroke for stroke, blow for blow, wound for wound. And Death wears no circled charm that can protect it from its Resurrected Lord.