The Green Knight (Welsh: Marchog Gwyrdd, Cornish: Marghek Gwyrdh, Breton: Marc'heg Gwer) is a heroic character of the Matter of Britain, originating in the 14th-century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the related medieval work The Greene Knight. His true name is revealed to be Bertilak de Hautdesert (spelled in some translations as "Bercilak" or "Bernlak") in Sir Gawain, while The Greene Knight names him "Bredbeddle".[1] The Green Knight later features as one of Arthur's greatest champions in the fragmentary balladKing Arthur and King Cornwall, again with the name "Bredbeddle".[2]
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Bertilak is transformed into the Green Knight by Morgan le Fay, a traditional adversary of King Arthur, to test his court. However, in The Greene Knight, he is transformed by a different woman for the same purpose. In both stories, he sends his wife to seduce Gawain as a further test. The King Arthur and King Cornwall ballad portrays him as an exorcist and one of the most powerful knights of Arthur's court. His wider role in Arthurian literature includes being a judge and tester of knights, and as such, the other characters consider him as friendly but terrifying and somewhat mysterious.[3]
In Sir Gawain, the Green Knight is so called because his skin and clothes are green. The meaning of his greenness has puzzled scholars.[4] Some identify him as the Green Man, a vegetation being of medieval art;[3] others as a recollection of a figure from Celtic mythology;[5] a Christian "pagan" symbol – the personified Devil.[3] The medievalist C. S. Lewis said the character was "as vivid and concrete as any image in literature."[3] Scholar J. A. Burrow called him the "most difficult character" to interpret.[3]
Historical context
The earliest appearance of the Green Knight is in the late 14th-century alliterative poemSir Gawain and the Green Knight, which survives in only one manuscript along with other poems by the same author, the so-called Pearl Poet.[6] This poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, writer of The Canterbury Tales, although the two wrote in different parts of England. The later poem, The Greene Knight, is a late medieval rhyming romance that likely predates its only surviving copy: the 17th-century Percy Folio.[7] The other work featuring the Green Knight, the later ballad "King Arthur and King Cornwall", also survives only in the Percy Folio manuscript. Its date of composition is uncertain, as it may be a version of an earlier story, or possibly a product of the 17th century.[8]
Role in Arthurian literature
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Green Knight appears before Arthur's court during a Christmas feast, holding a bough of holly in one hand and a battle axe in the other. Despite disclaim of war, the knight issues a challenge: he will allow one man to strike him once with his axe, with the condition that he return the blow the next year. At first, Arthur accepts the challenge, but Gawain takes his place and decapitates the Green Knight, who retrieves his head, reattaches it and tells Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel at the stipulated time.[9]
No, I seek no battle, I assure you truly: Those about me in this hall are but beardless children. If I were locked in my armour on a great horse, No one here could match me with their feeble powers. Therefore, I ask of the court a Christmas game...
– The Green Knight addresses Arthur's Court in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight[10]
The Knight features next as Bertilak de Hautedesert, lord of a large castle, Gawain's host before his arrival at the Green Chapel. At Bertilak's castle, Gawain is submitted to tests of his loyalty and chastity, wherein Bertilak sends his wife to seduce Gawain and arranges that each time Bertilak gains prey in hunting, or Gawain any gift in the castle, each shall exchange his gain for the other's. At New Year's Day, Gawain departs to the Green Chapel, and bends to receive his blow, only to have the Green Knight feint two blows, then barely nick him on the third. He then reveals that he is Bertilak, and that Morgan le Fay had given him the double identity to test Gawain and Arthur.[9]
The Greene Knight tells the same story as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with a few differences. Notably, the knight, here named "Bredbeddle", is only wearing green, not green-skinned himself. The poem also states the knight has been asked by his wife's mother (not Morgan in this version) to trick Gawain. He agrees because he knows his wife is secretly in love with Gawain, and hopes to deceive both. Gawain falters in accepting a girdle from her, and the Green Knight's purpose is fulfilled in a small sense. In the end, he acknowledges Gawain's ability and asks to accompany him to Arthur's court.[11]
In King Arthur and King Cornwall, the Green Knight again features as Bredbeddle, and is depicted as one of Arthur's knights. He offers to help Arthur fight a mysterious sprite (controlled by the magician, King Cornwall) which has entered his chamber. When physical attacks fail, Bredbeddle uses a sacred text to subdue it. The Green Knight eventually gains so much control over the sprite through this text that he convinces it to take a sword and strike off its master's head.[12]
Etymologies
The name "Bertilak" may derive from bachlach, a Celtic word meaning "churl" (i.e. rogueish, unmannerly), or from "bresalak", meaning "contentious". The Old French word bertolais is a form of "Bertilak" in the Arthurian tale Merlin from the Lancelot-Grail cycle.[3][13] Notably, the 'Bert-' prefix means 'bright', and the '-lak' can mean either 'lake' or "play, sport, fun, etc". "Hautdesert" probably comes from a mix of both Old French and Celtic words meaning "High Wasteland" or "High Hermitage". It may also have an association with desirete meaning "disinherited" (i.e. from the Round Table).[3]
Characters similar to the Green Knight appear in several other works. In Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, for example, Gawain's brother Gareth defeats four brothers in different coloured armour, including a "Grene Knyght" named Sir Partolope.[14] The three who survive the encounter eventually join the Round Table and appear several further times in the text. The stories of Saladin feature a certain "Green Knight"; a Spanish warrior (maybe from Castile, according to an Arab source) in a shield vert and a helmet adorned with stag horns. Saladin tries to make him part of his personal guard.[15] Similarly, a "Chevalier Vert" appears in the Chronicle of Ernoul during the recollection of events following the capture of Jerusalem in 1187; here, he is identified as a Spanish knight who earned this nickname from the Muslims due to his eccentric apparel.[16]
Some researchers have considered an association with Islamic tales.[17] The figure of Al-Khidr (Arabic: الخضر) in the Qur'an is called the "Green Man" as the only man to have drunk the water of life, which in some versions of the story turns him green.[18] He tests Moses three times by doing seemingly evil acts, which are eventually revealed to be noble deeds to prevent greater evils or reveal great goods. Both the Arthurian Green Knight and Al-Khidr serve as teachers to holy men (Gawain/Moses), who thrice tested their faith and obedience. It has been suggested that the character of the Green Knight may be a literary descendant of Al-Khidr, brought to Europe with the Crusaders and blended with Celtic and Arthurian imagery.[19]
Characters fulfilling similar roles
The beheading game appears in a number of tales, the earliest being the Middle Irish tale Bricriu's Feast. The challenger in this story is named "Fear", a bachlach (churl), and is identified as Cú Roí (a superhuman king of Munster in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology) in disguise. He challenges three warriors to his game, only to have them run from the return blow, until the hero Cú Chulainn accepts the challenge. With Cú Chulainn under his axe, this antagonist also feints three blows before letting the hero go. In the Irish version, the cloak of the churl is described as "glas", which means green.[20] In the Life of Caradoc, a Middle French narrative embedded in the anonymous First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail, another similar challenge is issued. In this story, a notable difference is that Caradoc's challenger is his father in disguise, come to test his honour. The French romancesLa Mule sans frein and Hunbaut and the Middle High Germanepic poemDiu Crone feature Gawain in beheading game situations. Hunbaut furnishes an interesting twist: Gawain cuts off the man's head, and then pulls off his magic cloak before he can replace it, causing his death.[21] A similar story, this time attributed to Lancelot, appears in the 13th century French work Perlesvaus.[22]
The 15th-century The Turke and Gowin begins with a Turk entering Arthur's court and asking, "Is there any will, as a brother, To give a buffett and take another?"[23] Gawain accepts the challenge, and is then forced to follow the Turk until he decides to return the blow. Through the many adventures they have together, the Turk, out of respect, asks the knight to cut off the Turk's head, which Gawain does. The Turk, surviving, then praises Gawain and showers him with gifts. Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle contains a scene in which the Carl, a lord, orders Gawain to strike him with his spear, and bends over to receive the blow.[24] Gawain obliges, the Carl rises, laughing and unharmed, and, unlike in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, no return blow is demanded or given.[21] Among all these stories, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the only one with a completely green character, and the only one tying Morgan le Fay to his transformation.[21][23]
Several stories also feature knights struggling to stave off the advances of voluptuous women, including Yder, the Lancelot-Grail Cycle, Hunbaut, and The Knight of the Sword. The Green Knight parallel in these stories is a King testing a knight as to whether or not he will remain chaste in extreme circumstances. The woman he sends is sometimes his wife (as in Yder), if he knows that she is unfaithful and will tempt other men; in The Knight of the Sword the king sends his beautiful daughter. All characters playing the Green Knight's role kill unfaithful knights who fail their tests.[21] Pwyll, in the First Branch of the Mabinogi, faces a similar chastity test.
Significance of the colour green
Michael Pacher's painting of a green Devil with Saint Augustine in 1475. Poetic contemporaries such as Chaucer also made associations between the colour green and the devil, causing scholars to make similar associations in readings of the Green Knight.
In English folklore and literature, green has traditionally been used to symbolise nature and its embodied attributes, namely those of fertility and rebirth. Critics have claimed that the Green Knight's role emphasises the environment outside of human habitation.[26] With his alternate identity as Bertilak, the Green Knight can also be seen as a compromise between both humanity and the environment as opposed to Gawain's representation of human civilisation.[27] Often, it is used to embody the supernatural or spiritual other world. In British folklore, the devil was sometimes considered to be green which may or may not play into the concept of the Green Man/ Wild Man dichotomy of the Green Knight.[28] Stories of the medieval period also portray the colour as representing love and the amorous in life,[29] and the base, natural desires of man.[30] Green is also known to have signified witchcraft, devilry and evil for its association with the fairies and spirits of early English folklore and for its association with decay and toxicity.[31] The colour, when combined with gold, is sometimes seen as representing the fading of youth.[32] In the Celtic tradition, green was avoided in clothing for its superstitious association with misfortune and death. Green in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is ambiguous as it could have a variety of meanings: signifying a transformation from good to evil and back again, or displaying both the spoiling and regenerative connotations of the colour.[3][25]
Interpretations
Of the many characters similar to him, the Green Knight of Sir Gawain is the first to be green.[33] Because of his strange colour, some scholars believe him to be a manifestation of the Green Man figure of medieval art,[3] or as a representation of both the vitality and fearful unpredictability of nature. That he carries a green holly branch, and the comparison of his beard to a bush, has guided many scholars to this interpretation. The gold entwined in the cloth wrapped around his axe, combined with the green, gives him both a wild and an aristocratic air.[30] Others consider him as being an incarnation of the Devil.[3] In one interpretation, it is thought that the Green Knight, as the "Lord of Hades", has come to challenge the noble knights of King Arthur's court. Sir Gawain, the bravest of the knights, therefore proves himself equal to Hercules in challenging the Knight, tying the story to ancient Greek mythology.[31] Scholars like Curely claim the descriptive features of the Green Knight suggest a servitude to Satan such as the beaver-hued beard alluding to the allegorical significance of beavers for the Christian audience of the time who believed that they renounced the world and paid "tribute to the devil for spiritual freedom."[34] Another possible interpretation of the Green Knight views him as combining elements from the Greek Hades and the Christian Messiah, at once representing both good and evil and life and death as self-proliferating cycles. This interpretation embraces the positive and negative attributes of the colour green and relates to the enigmatic motif of the poem.[3] The description of the Green Knight upon his entrance to Arthur's Court as "from neck to loin… strong and thickly made" is considered by some scholars as homoerotic.[35]
C.S. Lewis declared the Green Knight "as vivid and concrete as any image in literature" and further described him as:
a living coincidentia oppositorum; half giant, yet wholly a "lovely" knight"; as full of demoniac energy as old Karamazov, yet in his own house, as jolly as a Dickensian Christmas host; now exhibiting a ferocity so gleeful that it is almost genial, and now a geniality so outrageous that it borders on the ferocious; half boy or buffoon in his shouts and laughter and jumpings; yet at the end judging Gawain with the tranquil superiority of an angelic being [36]
The Green Knight could also be interpreted as a blend of two traditional figures in romance and medieval narratives, namely, "the literary green man" and the "literary wild man."[37] "The literary green man" signifies "youth, natural vitality, and love," whereas the "literary wild man" represents the "hostility to knighthood," "the demonic" and "death." The Knight's green skin connects the green of the costume to the green of the hair and beard, thus connecting the green man's pleasant manners and significance into the wild man's grotesque qualities.[37]
The Green Knight is also compared to the English holiday figure Jack in the Green. Jack is part of a May Day holiday tradition in some parts of England, but his connection to the Knight is found mainly in the Derbyshire tradition of Castleton Garland. In this tradition, a kind of Jack in the green known as the Garland King is led through the town on a horse, wearing a bell-shaped garland of flowers that covers his entire upper body, and followed by young girls dressed in white, who dance at various points along the route (formerly the town's bellringers, who still make the garland, also performed this role). On the top of the King's garland is the "queen", a posy of bright flowers. The King is also accompanied by his elegantly dressed female consort (nowadays, confusingly, also known as the Queen); played by a woman during recent times, until 1956 "the Woman" was always a man in woman's clothing. At the end of the ceremony, the queen posy is taken off the garland, to be placed on the town's war memorial. The Garland King then rides to the church tower where the garland is hauled up the side of the tower and impaled upon a pinnacle.[38] Due to the nature imagery associated with the Green Knight, the ceremony has been interpreted as possibly deriving from his famous beheading in the Gawain poem. In this case, the posy's removal would symbolise the loss of the knight's head.[39]
In the poem Gawain, when the Knight is beheaded, he tells Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel, saying that all nearby know where it is. Indeed, the guide which is to bring Gawain there from Bertilak's castle grows very fearful as they near it and begs Gawain to turn back. The final meeting at the Green Chapel has caused many scholars to draw religious connections, with the Knight fulfilling a priestly role with Gawain as a penitent. The Green Knight ultimately, in this interpretation, judges Gawain to be a worthy knight, and lets him live, playing a priest, God, and judge all at once.
The chapel is considered by Gawain as an evil place: foreboding, "the most accursed church", "the place for the Devil to recite matins"; but when the mysterious Knight allows Gawain to live, Gawain immediately assumes the role of penitent to a priest or judge, as in a genuine church. The Green Chapel may also be related to tales of fairy hills or knolls of earlier Celtic literature. Some scholars have wondered whether "Hautdesert" refers to the Green Chapel, as it means "High Hermitage"; but such a connection is doubted by most scholars.[3] As to the location of the chapel, in the Greene Knight poem, Sir Bredbeddle's living place is described as "the castle of hutton", causing some scholars to suggest a connection with Hutton Manor House in Somerset.[40] Gawain's journey leads him directly into the centre of the Pearl Poet's dialect region, where the candidates for the locations of the Castle at Hautdesert and the Green Chapel stand. Hautdesert is thought to be in the area of Swythamley in northwest Midland, as it is in the writer's dialect area, and matches the land features described in the poem.[41] The Green Chapel is thought to be in either Lud's Church or Wetton Mill, as these areas closely match the descriptions given by the author.[42]Ralph Elliott for example located the chapel the knight searches for near ("two myle henne" v1078) the old manor house at Swythamley Park at the bottom of a valley ("bothm of the brem valay" v2145) on a hillside ("loke a littel on the launde, on thi lyfte honde" v2147) in a large fissure ("an olde caue,/or a creuisse of an olde cragge" v2182–83).[43]
Popular culture
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Marvel Comics has its version of the Green Knight. While his history with Gawain is still intact, this version is depicted as having been merged with the Green Man who was an aspect of Gaea.[44]
The film The Green Knight depicted the titular character (performed by Ralph Ineson) as a wood-skinned character.[45] The part with him showing up in King Arthur's court and being beheaded by Gawain using his uncle's sword remains intact. Unlike the poem, there was no connection between the Green Knight and Bertilak de Hautdesert in this film. Instead by the final scene after Gawain envisioned that he became a reviled king after King Arthur's death and removed the protective green sash so that the Green Knight can strike him, the Green Knight just quotes "Well done". After moving his finger across Gawain's neck, he points his finger past Gawain where he sends him on his way while comically quoting "Now, off with your head".
↑ Hahn, Thomas. "The Greene Knight". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, p. 314. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000) ISBN1-879288-59-1.
↑ Hahn, Thomas. "King Arthur and King Cornwall". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, p. 427. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000) ISBN1-879288-59-1.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Besserman, Lawrence. "The Idea of the Green Knight." ELH, Vol. 53, No. 2. (Summer, 1986), pp. 219–239. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
↑ Mann, Jill (2009). "Courtly Aesthetics and Courtly Ethics in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". Studies in the Age of Chaucer. 31 (1): 231–265. doi:10.1353/sac.2009.a380147. ISSN1949-0755. S2CID191181088. The combination of his greenness with the most sophisticated luxury of courtly dress turns him into an enigmatic spectacle, one whose appearance is scrutinized in exhaustive detail over three long stanzas, as the courtiers (and the reader) try to decipher its meaning. He is at once totally open to inspection and totally opaque.
↑ Gentile, John S. (2014). "Shape-Shifter in the Green: Performing Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". Storytelling, Self, Society. 10 (2): 220–243. doi:10.13110/storselfsoci.10.2.0220. ISSN1932-0280.
↑ Scattergood, Vincent J. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". In Lacy, Norris J. (Ed.), The New Arthurian Encyclopedia, p. 419–421. New York: Garland. (1991). ISBN0-8240-4377-4.
↑ Hahn, Thomas. "The Orange Knight". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, pp. 309–312. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000). ISBN1-879288-59-1.
↑ Hahn, Thomas. "King Arthur and King Cornwall". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, pp. 419–421. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000). ISBN1-879288-59-1.
1 2 Wilhelm, James J. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.” The Romance of Arthur. Ed. Wilhelm, James J. New York: Garland Publishing, 1994. 399 – 465.
↑ "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight." The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: The Medieval Period. Vol. 1. ed. Joseph Black, et al. Toronto: Broadview Press. ISBN1-55111-609-X Intro pg. 235
↑ Kitson, P. R. (1998). "The Name of the Green Knight". Neuphilologische Mitteilungen. 99 (1): 39–52.
↑ Malory, Thomas; Vinaver, Eugène. Malory: Complete Works. p. 185. Oxford University Press. (1971). ISBN978-0-19-281217-9.
↑ Richard, Jean. "An Account of the Battle of Hattin Referring to the Frankish Mercenaries in Oriental Moslem States" Speculum 27.2 (1952) pp. 168–177.
↑ See the "Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Trésorier", edited by L. de Mas Latrie, Paris 1871, p. 237.
↑ Ng, Su Fang, and Kenneth Hodges. "Saint George, Islam, and Regional Audiences in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.'" Studies in the Age of Chaucer, vol. 32, 2010, pp. 256
↑ Lasater, Alice E. Spain to England: A Comparative Study of Arabic, European, and English Literature of the Middle Ages. University Press of Mississippi. (1974). ISBN0-87805-056-6.
1 2 3 4 Brewer, Elisabeth. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: sources and analogues. 2nd Ed. Boydell Press. (November 1992) ISBN0-85991-359-7
↑ Nitze, William A. (1936). "Is the Green Knight Story a Vegetation Myth?". Modern Philology. 33 (4): 351–366. doi:10.1086/388211. JSTOR434285. the one version of the Green Knight story which stands apart from the other seven versions, in that in place of one challenger who loses his head—with the chance of recovering it—there is a succession of kinsmen who are beheaded in turn, doubtless at yearly intervals. This version, which has remained a crux to most investigators, is found in the Perlesvaus (P), where the tale is connected with the wasteland motif associated with the Grail.
1 2 Hahn, Thomas. "The Turke and Sir Gawain". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000) ISBN1-879288-59-1. Online: The Turke and Sir Gawain.
↑ Hahn, Thomas. "Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle". In Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales. Western Michigan University Medieval Institute Publications. (2000). ISBN1-879288-59-1. Online: Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle.
1 2 Robertson, D. W. Jr. "Why the Devil Wears Green." Modern Language Notes (November 1954) 69.7 pgs. 470–472
↑ George, Michael W. "Gawain's Struggle with Ecology: Attitudes toward the Natural World in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" 'The Journal of Ecocriticism, vol. 2, no. 2, 2010. pg. 37
↑ Krappe, A.H. “Who Was the Green Knight?” Speculum 13.2 (1938): 206–215.
↑ Chamberlin, Vernon A. "Symbolic Green: A Time-Honored Characterizing Device in Spanish Literature." Hispania Vol. 51, No. 1 (Mar. 1968), pp. 29–37
1 2 Goldhurst, William. "The Green and the Gold: The Major Theme of Gawain and the Green Knight." College English, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Nov. 1958), pp. 61–65
1 2 Williams, Margaret. The Pearl Poet, His Complete Works. Random House, 1967.
↑ Lewis, John S. "Gawain and the Green Knight." College English. Vol. 21, No. 1 (Oct. 1959), pp. 50–51
↑ Krappe, A. H. "Who Was the Green Knight?" Speculum. (April 1938) 13.2 pgs. 206–215
↑ Curley, Michael J. "A Note of Bertilak's Beard." Modern Philology, vol. 73, no.1, 1975, pp.70
↑ Zeikowitz, Richard E. "Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes" College English Special Issue: Lesbian and Gay Studies/Queer Pedagogies. 65.1 (2002) 67–80.
↑ "The Anthropological Approach," in English and Medieval Studies Presented to J.R.R. Tolkien on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. Norman Davis and C.L. Wrenn (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962), 219–30; reprinted in Critical Studies of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. Donald R. Howard and Christian Zacher (Notre Dame, Ind. and London: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 1968), 63.
1 2 Larry D. Benson, Art and Tradition in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (New Brunswick: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1965), 56–95
↑ Hole, Christina. "A Dictionary of British Folk Customs." Paladin Books/Granada Publishing (1978) 114–115
↑ Rix, Michael M. "A Re-Examination of the Castleton Garlanding." Folklore (June 1953) 64.2 pgs. 342–344
↑ Twomey, Michael. "The Green Chapel". Travels With Sir Gawain. Ithaca Univ. Retrieved 21 June 2007.
↑ Elliott, R. W. V. (2010). "Searching for the Green Chapel". In Lloyd Jones, J. K. (ed.). Chaucer's Landscapes and Other Essays. Melbourne: Aust. Scholarly Publishing. pp.293–303.
King Arthur, according to legends, was a king of Britain. He is a folk hero and a central figure in the medieval literary tradition known as the Matter of Britain.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest which tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.
Guinevere, also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale.
Gawain, also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and one of the premier Knights of the Round Table. The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest Welsh sources. He has subsequently appeared in many Arthurian tales in Welsh, Latin, French, English, Scottish, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Italian, notably as the protagonist of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Other works featuring Gawain as their central character include De Ortu Waluuanii, Diu Crône, Ywain and Gawain, Golagros and Gawane, Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle, L'âtre périlleux, La Mule sans frein, La Vengeance Raguidel, Le Chevalier à l'épée, Le Livre d'Artus, The Awntyrs off Arthure, The Greene Knight, and The Weddynge of Syr Gawen and Dame Ragnell.
The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.
Morgan le Fay, alternatively known as Morgan[n]a, Morgain[a/e], Morg[a]ne, Morgant[e], Morge[i]n, and Morgue[in] among other names and spellings, is a powerful and ambiguous enchantress from the legend of King Arthur, in which most often she and he are siblings. Early appearances of Morgan in Arthurian literature do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a goddess, a fay, a witch, or a sorceress, generally benevolent and connected to Arthur as his magical saviour and protector. Her prominence increased as the legend of Arthur developed over time, as did her moral ambivalence, and in some texts there is an evolutionary transformation of her to an antagonist, particularly as portrayed in cyclical prose such as the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle. A significant aspect in many of Morgan's medieval and later iterations is the unpredictable duality of her nature, with potential for both good and evil.
Agravain is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, whose first known appearance is in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. He is the second eldest son of King Lot of Orkney with one of King Arthur's sisters known as Anna or Morgause, thus nephew of King Arthur, and brother to Sir Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, as well as half-brother to Mordred. Agravain secretly makes attempts on the life of his hated brother Gaheris starting in the Vulgate Cycle, participates in the slayings of Lamorak and Palamedes in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and murders Dinadan in the Prose Tristan. In the French prose cycle tradition included in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, together with Mordred, he then plays a leading role by exposing his aunt Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, which leads to his death at Lancelot's hand.
Perceval, the Story of the Grail is the unfinished fifth verse romance by Chrétien de Troyes, written by him in Old French in the late 12th century. Later authors added 54,000 more lines to the original 9,000 in what are known collectively as the Four Continuations, as well as other related texts. Perceval is the earliest recorded account of what was to become the Quest for the Holy Grail but describes only a golden grail in the central scene, does not call it "holy" and treats a lance, appearing at the same time, as equally significant. Besides the eponymous tale of the grail and the young knight Perceval, the poem and its continuations also tell of the adventures of Gawain and some other knights of King Arthur.
Sword of the Valiant: The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a 1984 dramatic fantasy film directed by Stephen Weeks and starring Miles O'Keeffe, Trevor Howard, Lila Kedrova, Cyrielle Clair, Leigh Lawson, Peter Cushing, and Sean Connery. The film is loosely based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, written in the late 14th century, but the narrative differs substantially. It was the second time Weeks had adapted the traditional tale into a film. His first effort was Gawain and the Green Knight (1973).
"The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is an English Arthurian ballad, collected as Child Ballad 31. Found in the Percy Folio, it is a fragmented account of the story of Sir Gawain and the loathly lady, which has been preserved in fuller form in the medieval poem The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle. The loathly lady episode itself dates at least back to Geoffrey Chaucer's "Wife of Bath's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales. Unlike most of the Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian "King Arthur and King Cornwall" and "The Boy and the Mantle", "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is not a folk ballad but a song for professional minstrels.
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is a 15th-century English poem, one of several versions of the "loathly lady" story popular during the Middle Ages. An earlier version of the story appears as "The Wyfe of Bayths Tale" in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and the later ballad "The Marriage of Sir Gawain" is essentially a retelling, though its relationship to the medieval poem is uncertain. The author's name is not known, but similarities to Le Morte d'Arthur have led to the suggestion that the poem may have been written by Sir Thomas Malory.
The Greene Knight is a late medieval rhyming romance, found in the Percy Folio Manuscript. The storyline effectively parallels the more famous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in describing the dealings of Gawain, King Arthur's nephew, with the Greene Knight.
King Arthur and King Cornwall is an English ballad surviving in fragmentary form in the 17th-century Percy Folio manuscript. An Arthurian story, it was collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 30. Unlike other Child Ballads, but like the Arthurian "The Boy and the Mantle" and "The Marriage of Sir Gawain", it is not a folk ballad but a professional minstrel's song. It is notable for containing the Green Knight, a character known from the medieval poems The Greene Knight and the more famous Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; he appears as "Bredbeddle", the character's name in The Greene Knight.
Lady Bertilak are names given by some modern critics to a character in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, though the poem itself only ever calls her "the lady". She is ordered by her husband, Sir Bertilak de Hautdesert, alias the Green Knight, to test Sir Gawain's purity.
Gawain and the Green Knight is a 1973 British film directed by Stephen Weeks, and starring Murray Head as Gawain and Nigel Green in his final theatrical film as the Green Knight. The story is based on the medieval English tale Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and also Yvain, the Knight of the Lion by Chrétien de Troyes and the tale of Sir Gareth in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.
King Arthur's family grew throughout the centuries with King Arthur's legend. Many of the legendary members of this mythical king's family became leading characters of mythical tales in their own right.
Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle is a Middle English tail-rhyme romance of 660 lines, composed in about 1400. A similar story is told in a 17th-century minstrel piece found in the Percy Folio and known as The Carle of Carlisle. These are two of a number of early English poems that feature the Arthurian hero Sir Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in his English role as a knight of the Round Table renowned for his valour and, particularly, for his courtesy.
The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain is a Middle Scots Arthurian romance written in alliterative verse of 1362 lines, known solely from a printed edition of 1508 in the possession of the National Library of Scotland. No manuscript copy of this lively and exciting tale has survived.
The beheading game is a literary trope found in Irish mythology and medieval chivalric romance. The trope consists of a stranger who arrives at a royal court and challenges a hero to an exchange of blows: the hero may decapitate the stranger, but the stranger may then inflict the same wound upon the hero. The supernatural nature of the stranger, which makes this possible, is only revealed when he retrieves his severed head. When the hero submits himself to the return blow, he is rewarded for his valour and is left with only a minor wound. The hero is seen as coming of age by undergoing the exchange of blows, and his symbolic death and rebirth is represented by the feigned return blow.
The Avowing of Arthur, or in full The Avowing of King Arthur, Sir Gawain, Sir Kay, and Baldwin of Britain, is an anonymous Middle English romance in 16-line tail-rhyme stanzas telling of the adventures of its four heroes in and around Carlisle and Inglewood Forest. The poem was probably composed towards the end of the 14th century or the beginning of the 15th century by a poet in the north of England. It exhibits many similarities of form and plot with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and other romances of the Middle English Gawain cycle. Though formerly dismissed as an ill-organized collection of unconnected episodes, it has more recently been called a "complex and thought-provoking romance" with an effective diptych structure, which displays a wide knowledge of Arthurian and other tales and gives a fresh turn to them.
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