A New Year’s Day Reflection on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by John Howe (1995)

“Why should I hesitate? Against a hard and dire fate what can a man do but try?” ~ Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, author unknown, as spoken by Sir Gawain [1]

Thematically fitting for New Year’s Day, we’re taking this opportunity to reflect on the anonymous late fourteenth-century romance poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. A masterpiece of Middle English poetry, it is a must-read for anyone interested in chivalry, medieval romance, and the Matter of Britain, particularly the Arthurian legends. If you haven’t done so already, we highly recommend finding a copy and delving in.

Leading up to this post, we regrettably decided to take a chance and watch director David Lowery’s 2021 film adaptation, The Green Knight starring Dev Patel as Gawain. Despite being (at times) visually stunning, the movie, in typical Hollywood fashion, is disappointingly unfaithful to the original tale. For example, instead of being a paragon of knightly virtue, Gawain is portrayed as a whoremonger and wastrel. Time and time again, everything virtuous, transcendent and beautiful in literature and the arts must be subverted, pilloried and dragged through the mire by lesser men. If you haven’t seen the film yet, we suggest you avoid it altogether, or at the very least wait until after you have read the book to see for yourself.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, original
manuscript, unknown (late 14th century)

For the sake of those who have not already read the actual story, the tale begins in King Arthur’s court at Camelot one New Year’s Day. During the festive Yuletide revelry, the door of the great banquet hall swings open and an ominous figure arrayed in green raiment and wielding a great axe rides in on a virescent stallion. He challenges any knight present to strike him with the weapon on condition that he can return the blow a year later. Gawain accepts the challenge and lops off the intruder’s head. Instead of dying, the headless body picks up its severed head and tells Gawain before departing to find him at the Green Chapel in twelvemonths time.

One year later, Gawain sets off on his steed Gringolet in search of the Green Chapel. Traveling through strange lands, we are told he faced so many marvels (dragons, ogres and wild men), that “it would be tedious to tell a tenth of them.” Nearing his destination, he discovered the castle of Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert. Learning of the pact, de Hautdesert bade the wandering knight to stay as his most welcome guest before continuing on his quest. The hospitable castellan and knight then made a bargain to exchange whatever each chanced upon, fair or foul, during the stay.

While her husband was out hunting, Lady de Hautdesert, whose beauty rivaled Queen Guinevere, attempted to seduce Gawain on three separate occasions. Tempted, but never completely succumbing to her advances, he yields her a kiss on each visit. Returning from the hunt each night with a different trophy (stag, boar and fox), de Hautdesert keeps his word and gives his guest the game. Gawain in turn kisses his host “in the comeliest way he could think of.” After the third attempt, the Lady ceases her carnal overtures and offers Gawain her green silken girdle as a keepsake. Promising it will protect him from danger, he accepts the gift, but keeps it from her husband.

Arriving at the Green Chapel on New Year's Day, Gawain kneels before the Green Knight to fulfill his oath (the "Beheading Test"). Taking up his mighty axe, the grim warrior pretends to strike twice before nicking Gawain on the back of the neck with his third swing. Revealing himself to be the Lord of the castle, the Green Knight admonishes Gawain for flinching on the first swing and for failing to divulge the girdle that his wife gave him. Praising him for his chastity during the so-called "Love Test," he explains the two feigned blows were for the kisses he admitted to, but the scratch on the neck was for hiding the silken talisman.

Though he failed to keep his end of the bargain at the castle, Gawain proved himself honorable and brave by showing up to face certain death at the chapel and confessing his fault. Humbled by the Green Knight, he is duly pardoned and allowed to keep the girdle, which he uses as a baldric and a reminder of his "tarnishing sin." Cordially parting ways, Gawain returns to Camelot, he believes, in shame. Saved by grace, he has many adventures in "lonely lands" along the way, but the storyteller chooses not to regale us with them. Back at court, Gawain recounts his tale to Arthur and his fellow knights with sorrow and guilt, but his gallant brethren comfort and fêted him as a hero. In fact, they all take to wearing a green band in his honor.

Morgan le Fay by Frederick Sandys (1864)

The Green Knight is sometimes erroneously conflated with the Green Man, a mythical forest being (commonly depicted as a foliate head) said to represent death and rebirth, and Europe’s wild men of the woods, feral brutes brandishing clubs and loosely akin to werecreatures, who transform, inter alia, into stags, bears or wolves. [2] Though he can change form, we learn that the Green Knight, unlike the monstrous race of wild folk, is an ordinary man who was bewitched by the sorceress Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s half-sister and wayward apprentice of the wizard Merlin. A periodic antagonist of the Knights of the Round Table, Morgan le Fay often used witchcraft and trickery to test their mettle.

As an aside (and keeping with my excessive fixation with pointing out that everything I'm interested in is only six degrees of separation from the Two Sicilies), Morgan le Fay is blamed for the ethereal mirages known as la Fata Morgana (the Fairy Morgana) that sometimes takes place over the Straits of Messina between Calabria and Sicily. Moreover, Reggio Calabria, where the illusion can be seen is popularly known as the Città della Fata Morgana. On the island paradise of Avalon, which is often associated with the isle of Sicily, the enchantress tends to a dormant King Arthur, who, legend says, will one day return in Britain’s hour of need. As for Arthur himself, it turns out he may have been a Roman knight (eques) from Campania by the name of Lucius Artorius Castus. [3]

Discussing the poem with a friend, he told me in passing that it reminded him of the legendary Dullahan, a headless evil spirit on horseback from Irish folklore. Personally, other than the decapitated head and the horse, I don’t see any similarities between the two unearthly protagonists. I admit I am unfamiliar with the Irish legends, so there may be more to the eldritch cephalophore than meets the eye. In truth, the Celtic phantom he described reminds me more of Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) than the Green Knight.

The Headless Horseman Pursuing Ichabod Crane by John Quidor (1858)

Seeing as we are all products of the modern world, even the most traditional-minded among us are, to varying degrees, influenced by the “spirit of the times.” Perhaps I’m just projecting my own shortcomings, but as much as I would like to believe it ain’t so, even we devout anti-moderns are too far removed from the Medieval Christian mindset. While the story’s message of honor, duty, humility and chastity is plain to see, I wonder if a modern, that is to say, a desacralized, audience can truly appreciate their importance in the same manner as our distant ancestors once did. Imagine if you will, some giant nutter barging in on your office Christmas party and challenging the guests to a violent contest. I don’t know many people who would take up the axe today, especially in our courtrooms, boardrooms and halls of power.

What I love most about the story is that the hero, Gawain, is a mortal man, albeit, an extraordinary one. A man of duty and honor, he is chivalrous, chaste, brave, pious, and strong. He is the ideal Christian knight and exudes everything our modern materialists, misandrists and godless world despises. Unlike many of the great heroes and demigods in Classical mythology, who, though still admirable, are the offspring of the gods (e.g. Achilles, Aeneas, Bellerophon, Herakles, Orpheus, Perseus, Theseus, among others), he is truly one of us.

Facing temptation and certain death, Gawain shows us that we are capable of achieving distinction and glory. Not vainglory—for his motives were truly honorable and virtuous. Gawain accepted the Green Knight’s challenge out of fealty to his king and he rode untold leagues through dangerous lands to find the Green Chapel in order to keep his word and face the executioner’s cold steel. Blessed as we are to be living in these dark and terrible times, we are each afforded the opportunity to take the heroic path, make honorable choices, and aspire to greater heights.

Now Christ with his crown of thorn
Bring us his bliss evermore! Amen [4]

~ Giovanni di Napoli, December 31, Feast of San Silvestro I

Notes
[1] The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Alan M. Markman, PMLA, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 72, No. 4, September 1957, pp. 574-586
[2] Ibid
[3] From Scythia to Camelot by C. Scott Littleton and Linda A. Malcor, Routledge, 2nd Edition, 2000.
[4] The last line in the poem, reprinted from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated with introduction by Brian Stone, Penguin Books, 1974

Bibliography
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated with introduction by Brian Stone, Penguin Books, 1974
• The Meaning of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Alan M. Markman, PMLA, Cambridge University Press, Vol. 72, No. 4, September 1957, pp. 574-586