Story Review Sir Gawain and The Green Knight

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT

 His adventure with the mysterious Green Knight is the best known of Gawain’s tales, having been translated many times, with one Middle English version even being presented by Hobbit author J R R Tolkien.

A poor quality film version, Sword Of The Valiant, was made in 1984, with Miles O’Keefe as a very wooden Gawain (he was also Tarzan in the dreadful Bo Derek version of that story0 and Sean Connery as The Green Knight.

The story, originating in the 14th century, is traditionally set at New Year’s Day, in keeping with its theme of renewal, and death – rebirth.

Camelot was not always a happy place. Like its King, it grew from conflict and bloodshed, and perished n civil war and unrest as the Queen’s adultery and the King’s incestuous affair with his stepsister tore through the loyalties of the Knights within. Arthur managed ultimately to unite his kingdom, restoring the faith of his knights through the soul searching grail quest and drawing back the scattered knights for one final blaze of glorious righteous battle against Mordred’s evil forces, before vanishing in a sleeping death to the land of Avalon, with vows to return once England requires it.

                               SUMMARY OF THE MAIN STORY

It is the period between these conflicts when Camelot is at its height as a utopian and wonderful realm. Evil has been largely vanquished, the dragons slain. Camelot is wealthy, pagan and early Christian teachings unite. The knights learn chivalry and joust a lot. All is well in Albion.

New Year’s Day, and the court are in full celebration. Suddenly, there is a gatecrasher amidst the revelry. A mysterious, sinister knight, dressed in green and green of hair and face too. He is a giant, bearing a large axe, but seems to pose no immediate threat to anyone present. Despite his trespass the King welcomes him to the feast and the castle. The knight issues a bizarre challenge, inviting any knight who dares, to behead him with the very axe he bears. The could then keep his axe as if it were their own. The condition is that if they fail to kill him, they must meet with him the following New Year’s Day when he will reclaim the axe from them, and take off their head with it.

The King himself rises to the challenge initially, but Gawain intervenes to champion the cause in his place, referred to as a mere trifling jest by the Green Knight. The knight’s head is decapitated, but Gawain is dismayed when the man picks up the head and picks it up. The head addresses Gawain with clues as to the location of the Knight’s chapel as the knight rides away from Camelot. Gawain accepts his fate and vows in all sincerity to meet with the Green Knight away from Camelot, at the Knight’s own chapel, a year onwards. His proud arrogant sense of commitment to the oath of promise is central to all that follows.

Gawain has a troubled year, but doesn’t prepare for his part of the strange bargain until the Halloween. A full mass in conducted in his honour as Gawain rides out in his finest armour on his horse, Gringalet. The mood at Camelot is that of mourning for one never to return. 

Gawain’s shield motif (described exclusively in the Green Knight story) is curious, being a pentacle, said to be associated with the Wisdom of Solomon, representing an endless knot. It looks positively Satanic in artistic depictions.

Distracted by many side adventures with giants and wolves, the search for the Green Chapel proves fruitless until the Christmas week, a mere week short of the appointment time. His Christmas prayer to Mary, mother of the new bore Christ, puts him on the right track where he finds a castle to rest in for the night. He receives great hospitality, so much so that Gawain is kept there perilously close to his day of appointment. He learns from the host however that the Green Chapel is very close by and that he need not fear missing his destiny.

Meanwhile, the Lord of the castle makes Gawain play out another jest. The Lord will go hunting, and promises to give Gawain whatever prey he catches.  Gawain has only to stay with the Lord’s wife, and give the Lord whatever the wife gives to him.

Gawain accepts this challenge too. The Lord catches and kills several deer, bringing the meat home for his guest. Gawain fends off the seductive advances of the lady of the house, accepting only her tender kiss – the very kiss he gives her husband when they exchange their prizes. The game is repeated the next day with similar results. Gawain staves off the Lord’s wife’s advances bar for giving in to two kisses, which he gives to the husband in exchange for the wild boar he has caught. The Lord is in effect showing strength and virility and power, while Gawain is weakened by chastity, virtue and courtesy.

A third day the game is played, with a fox hunted by the castle Lord, and Gawain again fends off the seductive advances of the wife, though they again exchange kisses. She offers Gawain her ring, which he refuses, but he does accept her girdle, a sash of ‘green’ silk. She assures Gawain that the girdle will protect him from all harm, so, thinking of his looming appointment with the Green Knight’s axe (which he himself is bearing to the execution) he accepts it.

The final exchange of prizes is marred in that the Lord shows the captured fox, but Gawain does not reveal the accepted gift of the girdle, only the three kisses swapped with the wife. Gawain now rides to his appointment, despite warnings from passing travellers that no one goes near the Green Knight and survives. Gawain refuses to let fear slow down the course of his journey.

The appointment kept, Gawain presents the Green Knight with the axe and presents his head for chopping off. As the axe falls. Gawain flinches. Te Green Knight aborts the blow and accuses him of mild cowardice, given that he didn’t flinch from his own decapitation. A second blow is aborted when a hood presented to Gawain by King Arthur gets in the way of the axe fall. The third blow strikes but only gently enough to cut the skin on the back of Gawain’s neck. The Green Knight now reveals that he was the castle Lord in disguise. He set his wife to Gawain’s testing, and by not revealing the exchange of the protective girdle; Gawain has failed in part in his quest. He has been torn between the honour of the Lord’s wife and duty to the Lord.

Gawain feels shamed by the failed elements of his missions, and returns to Camelot, where all knights from then on wore green girdles in memory of his adventure and virtue.

Gawain seems mystified that he is seen as succeeding when he sees his quest as a failure. His fear of death was natural instinct, and love of life. He steeled himself well against seductions, and kept the appointment many might have fled from. The Green Knight is ultimately a benevolent teacher, a complex, stern moral judge of Gawain’s worth. Though he marks the Knight down as far from perfect in aim and achievement, he clearly holds him in high regard.

CAMELOT AFTER THE GREEN KNIGHT’S DEPARTURE.

Ultimately, it was the peace that ruined Camelot. With no enemies beyond and fewer quests or damsels to save from distress, the knights grew bored, and began having affairs, and intrigues that would turn them against one another.

Gawain tries initially to keep out of the conflict between the knights caused by Lancelot’s shocking affair with Guenevere, which pushed Camelot into near civil war. He attempts to stop the story from breaking out, knowing the damage it could do, but he fails. He accepts Arthur’s reluctant wishes for Guenevere’s execution as being the law because it is the King’s wish, and when Lancelot rescues her, Gawain falls out with his best friend and they fight, parting as bitter enemies.

Later, after being wounded in battle with Mordred, and as he lies close to dying, Gawain realizes that he was wrong and writes a letter to Lancelot begging him to come back to help in the fight against Mordred, which the greater knight does.

The  J R R Tolkien & E V Gordon Middle English translation – http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=cme;idno=Gawain

Jessie L Weston’s modern English translation – http://www.lib.rochester.edu/CAMELOT/sggk.htm

Arthur Chappell