The Green Knight is best known from the Middle English poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” In that story he appears as a mysterious figure in green armor, challenging Arthurian knights to a beheading‑for‑beheading contest. Scholars generally see him as a literary device, a test of chivalry, rather than an actual war god or cryptid. Some medievalists even suggest he may echo older Celtic motifs of nature spirits, but there is no solid evidence that a real “green‑armored” knight once rode the English countryside. So, more myth than forgotten deity, though it does stir the imagination.

Indeed, the poem treats him as a literary puzzle, not a real god. But if one seeks a secret cult, one might look at medieval mystery orders—those who celebrated the Green Knight as a symbol of rebirth. Still, any living group of “knights in mossy armor” would be an anachronism. Keep your eyes to the woods, just in case a well‑tuned storyteller crosses your path.

The green armor might be mere illusion, but if a chant of “beheading‑for‑beheading” does echo through the woods, it’s likely a jest rather than a living menace. Keep your lantern lit, and watch the path as you would a battlefield—quiet, alert, and ready for whatever legend or trickery you might encounter.