Medieval Arthurian Legend
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
14th century, Middle English, British Museum, London.
It is part of the agreement that Sir Gawain should suffer himself, a year later, the single blow that he has given to the Green Knight at King Arthur’s Christmas feast.
'In the Middle English poems about Sir Gawain, courtesy is the hallmark of King Arthur’s nephew. He behaves correctly, and his motto is ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ His greatest fear is dishonour. His word is his bond. Perhaps the most chilling and powerful image in Medieval English poetry is of Gawain’s journey through the rain and sleet of a northern English winter searching with increasing desperation for a Green Chapel, whose whereabouts he does not know but in which he has an obligation to suffer the return stroke of an axe which he used to behead the Green Knight more than eleven months previously. It was part of the agreement that Sir Gawain should suffer himself, a year later, the single blow that he had given to the Green Knight at King Arthur’s Christmas feast.
'Dad hadn't read the work of John Matthews at the time he wrote this passage from Weird Tales from the Middle Ages,' said Quintin, ''cos otherwise he might have mentioned all the evidence Matthews presents for the pre-Christian credentials of Sir Gawain and his role as a hero and rescuer of a Goddess of Spring. All very interesting. And he might also have mentioned Matthew's comment regarding the Medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Kinght, that: In this instance we have an unusual situation where Cuchulainn/Gawain faces Curoi/Bercilak, while in fact all four derive from the same primal figure.
broomstick
∩ The Medieval story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, c. 1390, translated into Modern English.
∩ Weird Tales—discussion.
references
Sir Gawain - Wikipedia
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Wikipedia
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Middle English Text at the University of Toronto English Library
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