If Gawain made an apt pairing with Beowulf, so this adaptation (2001) of a Scottish folktale makes an apt pairing with Gawain, as this story’s magical Green Man with his three sinister tests and his magically helpful female relative seems akin to the Green Knight (though the tropes of three sinister tests, and magically helpful female relatives of the villain, are not exactly uncommon in folklore). Once again, as with Beowulf and Gawain, the animation is lovely and atypical.
I’m not sure that Middelboe was involved with this particular episode, but it’s part of the ”Animated Tales of the World” series (most of them Welsh/Russian collaborations) on which she worked as editor, and I’m really just using her name as a handy tag for these various animated-adaptations-of-classic-stories series which share both a common sensibility and a number of recurring artists and actors, usually but not always including Middelboe. And because it’s a cool name.
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