How do I translate the title of the Norwegian folktale, “Ridder Grøndler og Jomfru Clara”?

Ridder Grøndler (Sir or Master Grøndler) doesn’t make sense; the name is unknown. However, Grøndler sounds like the Danish word for green. So I search for Ridder Grøn(d), and turned up a folk name for a plant in the crowfoot family – ridderen i det grønne – which Linneaus designated as the genus Adonis. So perhaps Ridder Grøndler has somehow developed from a classical deity.

But things become more complicated.

The Adonis genus belongs to the Ranunculoideae family, collectively called the “soleie” family in Norwegian.

This brings us to the folktale known as “The Virgin Mary as Godmother,” which Jørgen Moe uses as an example of how pagan ideas have been shrouded in Christian imagery (my annotated edition, vol. 1, p. LXVIIf). From my notes on this folktale: “Of the ten collected Norwegian variants […] four have titles such as ‘Solia’ or ‘Soldia,’ which may suggest a conflation with the hagiography of St Odile of Alsace (c.662–c.720), who was baptised ‘Sol Dei’” (ibid, p. 653).

So it is possible that the first folktale I mention above (as yet unpublished) is related to classical mythology through botany. The botany may also relate to a different (published) Norwegian folktale, which its collector has connected to Christian and Norse mythologies. Though it may also be related to a (now obscure) hagiography.

And now I am wondering about “The Green Knight.”

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