Green Knight

End of Raven's Marriage in Myths and Legends Around the World, Collection 12

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Book 1.

In Myths and Legends Around the World.

not so by him that sitteth upon height to dwell here any while is not my will but sith the praise is gone forth of thy might that men esteem thy burg the noblest still thy men the bravest riding upon hill their fleet steeds and of skill well proven and shown in knightly games i thought it not so ill bethinking me of thy high dealing known and courtesy to come here claiming as my own the right to seek some knight in knightly play and for pledge of peace i bear this bow i would no war in weeds of holiday i have at home hauberk and helm i trow shield and sharp spear and fighting gear enow then grant me fair the game i ask by right seeing that the garb i bear makes softer show i seek no harm but come for pastime dight and arthur made reply and said sir courteous knight if thou cravest battle seek thy counter here nay tis not battle i seek he cries again among these beardless babes what is to fear for were i on a high steed armed why then weak though i be i think among these men there's none to match me hearken then and know what knight soever bold of blood and brain dare proffer and have back of me one blow with this axe let him keep it it is heavy enow and if i bide the first i little reck and now if any knight a game would win and with this rich axe strike me by the neck he need but leap here have it and begin while i stand stiff as stone this hall within he keeps the axe to boot his respite out a day and twelvemonth when next yule is in he must come seek my dwelling with no rout there have his counter buffet let him never doubt if still at first, were they not stiller now.

No sound at all uprose from any side.

The green knight settles him by saddle-bow, and rolls his red eyes, searching far and wide, who so should rise, and his lithe fingers tied, which twitching in his green beard never cease.

Then coughed, and with loud tone of insult cried are these knights arthurs that whole realms deprease whereof the rumor runs through many provinces what boots you're boasting your high insolence your pride your wrath your victories all and each for now the whole of your renown flies hence sped thither by the words of one man's speech why the rogues shake beyond my axe's reach with this he laughed so loud his whole face lined with wrinkles but his blushing doth impeach the king's hot shame then folly shalt thou find he cries in tones of menace like the rising wind for by heaven thou dost seek no other thing yet know i none of thy great words afeard the axe here and for god's sake cries the king striding upon him the other his bulk upreared and vaults to ground and standing overpeered by the full head all other in the house as with a stern cheer stroking his great beard and drawing down his coat his head he bows no more dismayed than if one had brought him to carouse herewith gawain from by the queen's high place leans forward crying lo i thus openly beseech my lord to grant me of his grace to have this play for if he summon me i may approach with no discourtesy if my liege lady think thereof no ill for when a challenge is preferred so high before your court though you would have it still yet do these many knights but wait upon your will it were unseemly then as may be guessed if all we stir not none alive more able than your knights hereabouts and i the least in wit and worth of any of your table shall least be missed in nothing commendable am i save your blood uncle in my veins then sith this thing is but despicable not worthy your endeavouring what remains give it me that first asked it fitter for my pains if i speak ill before your knights let them determine whispering then all judge the same to free the wearer of the diadem and to sir gawaine to decree the game so arthur calls him and gawaine ran and came and knelt unto him he lifts him decorously gives him god's blessing and speaks thus free from blame counsel him mary coz so cunningly that time enough go by ere he reply to thee now has gawain the axe and should have hacked save that the other but with unblanched face stay up him crying renew we first the pact deliver me on oath thy name and race that i may know thee at the trysting place good faith i gawain do this buffet drive and then a day and twelvemonth passed in space myself armed how thou wilt engaged to arrive at thy house having for company no man alive there too the green knight answer makes again god cries the green knight this delighteth me so may i ever thrive as i am fain to have my blow thou dost so readily rehearse the compact yet this swear to me swear thou to seek me out upon what strand thou dream'st me living there to have pay and fee thy name nor place i neither understand warrior where thou dwellest nor in what strange land by him that wrought me speak where lies thy shore lest wandering i lose thee gone astray whom yet i swear to seek he cries no more one oath sufficeth on a new year day if i shall tell thee having had my pay where lie my lands set forth and nothing doubt but if i speak not then the other way thou without blame mayst tarry with this rout and live long in thy land and never wend thereout take thy grim tool let see thy striking now gladly cries gawain making ready bound and plants his feet the other lowers his brow and strokes his green locks forward from his crown and lo and lovely did they fall adown then gawain gathers the great axe upon height and shears through flesh fat bone over his gown the green head totters drops rolls and in despite many start forth to spurn and kick it from their sight the axe stood buried deep in the floor of the hall then o'er the green out twines the oozing blood but that dead body doth not falter nor fall but starts forth stiffly where the princes stood grasping with one dead hand as it were wood to find its head and clutched and caught it fair makes for the horse the nearest way that it could baring his own head by the bloodied hair as him no mishap ailed all headless though he were striketh the stirrup vaults his horse's back then moves slow round that ugly trunk that bled for matter of disquiet few men lack as toward the dais he sets the streaming head whose eyes unlocking show blood-shot and red and staring broad then speak the moving lips that thou be ready even as thou hast said in these nights hearing lest thy fame eclipse look to it ere away thy day and twelve months slips to have my stroke against that thou didst show me get thee to the green chapel bring no friend the knight of the green chapel many know me thou knowest thy compact forget not wend or be known recreant till thy life shall end he wrenched the reins and suddenly both were fled through the hall door but whither no mortal gleaned for from their sights he charges with the head and ever the flint fire of the hoofs flies out blood-red they marvel where he goes those mazed men but that can none resolve of all the press naught is but question and surmise what then they hold this thing a miracle i guess arthur with gawain laughs at this strangeness but cloaks his wonder saying to the queen dear dame what cheer take nothing in distress apt apt it is this craft that we have seen a fitting feasting fellow was this man in green who graced our dancing singing and delight and yet a strange one i will not deny but now to supper will i take me right and with glad heart do all things merrily he turns then on gawaine a glancing eye up with thine axe that hath so amply mown up with it high upon the tapestry and as the king bade straightway was it done there by the truest token it makes true things known of strangest happenings then they throng again unto the boards these gay knights all a rout arthur was brought to place and sir gawaine and nimble sewers deftly bear about to each a double portion without doubt and minstrels their sweet airs play delicately till daylight dies that is with mirth drawn out in many lands yet Look and see that when thine hour is out, there shall no tearing be.

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by Jesse L. Weston.

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This work is contained in the first number of Arthurian romances unrepresented in Mallory's Mort d'Arthur.

Its full title is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a Middle English Arthurian romance retold in modern prose with introduction and notes.

The reader is Thomas Copeland.

The

idea of the Guy Fawkes bonfire probably harks back to earlier rites, and the concept of the male plant figure demanding tribute occurs again in the Arthurian legend of the Green Knight, the figure who appears on New Year's Day, who cannot be harmed, and who holds Gawain to a strange bargain.

Y'all, watch the Green Knight if you haven't already, I'm just saying.

I just re-watched it the other night.

Nice, nice.

But in those days, as rare old Chaucer tells, all Britain was fulfilled of miracles.

So as I said, the great doors opened wide, in rushed a blast of winter from outside, and with it, galloping on the empty air, a great green giant on a great green mare, plunged like a tempest cleaving thunderbolt, and struck four-footed with an earthquake's jolt plump on the hearthstone.

There the uncouth wit sat greenly laughing at the strange affright that paled all cheeks and opened wide all eyes.

Till after the first shock of quick surprise, the people circled round him, still in awe, and circling stared, and this is what they saw.

So, are you all ready? Will you bide the blow?" And Gawain said, "I will," in such soft tones as happy bridegrooms utter when their throats are paralyzed with blessed anticipation.

What Gawain looked for was decapitation.

And then the Green Knight swung his axe in air with a loud whirr, and Gawain, kneeling there, shrank back an inch, and the Green Giant stayed his threatening hand, with a cold sneer said, "You shrink, sir, from the axe.

I can't hit true unless you hold still, as I did for you." "Your pardon," Gawain said with bated breath.

The five-pointed figure becomes Christian not through one decree, but through the convergence of philosophy, scripture, education, embodied devotion, and poetry.

In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, perfect geometry becomes the measure of a frightened human being attempting to preserve an integrity whose parts cannot be separated without consequence.

Christianity emerged within a world already shaped by Greek philosophy, Roman institutions, Jewish scriptural traditions, Hellenistic science, and centuries of cultural exchange across the Eastern Mediterranean.

Its earliest communities did not encounter mathematics, philosophy, or symbolic interpretation as foreign territories waiting to be discovered.

The pentagram entered Christian culture within the overlapping field of devotion, memory, material practice, and protection, and its meaning reached its most elaborate surviving literary expression not in a theological treatise or magical manual, but in a poem about a knight confronting death, temptation, shame, and the limits of his own integrity.

Upon his shield appeared a golden five-pointed figure that the poet called the Pentangle, an apparently endless line whose meaning unfolded through five groups of five and whose bearer was Sir Gawain.

Sometime during the late 14th century, an anonymous English poet composed one of the most intricate works of medieval literature, a poem now known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Its author remains unidentified, although linguistic evidence places him somewhere in the northwest midlands of England, and the surviving manuscript preserves the work alongside three other religious poems generally attributed to the same writer, Pearl, Patience, and Cleanness.

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight This work is contained in the first number of Arthurian romances unrepresented in Mallory's Mort d'Arthur.

Its full title is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a Middle English Arthurian romance retold in modern prose with introduction and notes.

The reader is Thomas Copeland.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Preface The poem, of which the following pages offer a prose rendering, is contained in a manuscript believed to be unique, of the Catonian collection Nero A. X., preserved in the British Museum.

The manuscript is of the end of the 14th century, but it is possible that the composition of the poem is somewhat earlier.

The subject matter is certainly of very old date.

Indeed, it is the real difficulty and obscurity of the language which, in spite of careful and scholarly editing, will always place the poem in its original form outside the range of any but professed students of medieval literature, which has encouraged me to make an attempt to render it more accessible to the general public.

Some of these tales have been forgotten, and some have been lost, or long buried, and there are several that may seem new to you, who read them here today.

Such a story is that of the Elf and Green Knight, which is a case of a delightful old fairytale that grew into as a delightful romance.

A romance, indeed, is little else than a fairy tale for older folk.

The romancers swapped, as schoolboys say, their good things, and in this way we get a story like that of King Arthur and the giant of St. Michael's Mount, which comes from the noble old romancer Sir Thomas Malory.

All was hurry and preparation in the castle, and the marriage which took place happily ended the adventures of the Black Bull of Norway, and the wanderings of the king's daughter.

CHAPTER XI.

When Arthur was King of Britain, and so reigned, it befell one winter-tide he held at Camelot his Christmas-feast, with all the knights of the round table full fifteen days all was joy then in hall and chamber and when the new year came it was kept with great joy rich gifts were given and many lords and ladies took their seats at the table where queen guenever sat at the king's side and a lady fairer of form might no one say he had ever before seen but king arthur would not eat nor would he long sit until he should have witnessed some wondrous adventure the first course was served with a blowing of trumpets and before each two guests were set twelve dishes and bright wine for there was no want of anything scarcely had the first course commenced when there rushed in at the hall-door a knight the tallest on earth he must have been his back and breast were broad but his waist was small he was clothed entirely in green and his spurs were of bright gold his saddle was embroidered with birds and flies and the steed that he rode upon was green gaily was the knight attired his great beard like a green bush hung on his breast his horse's mane was decked with golden threads and its tail bound with a green band such a horse and such a knight were never before seen it seemed that no man might endure the green knight's blows but he carried neither spear nor shield in one hand he held a holly bow and in the other an axe the edge of which was as keen as a sharp razor and the handle was encased in iron curiously graven with green thus arrayed the green knight entered the hall without saluting any one and asked for the governor of the company and looked about him for the most renowned of them much they marvelled to see a man and a horse as green as grass never before had they seen such a sight as this they were afraid to answer and were as silent as if sleep had taken hold of them some from fear others from courtesy king arthur who was never afraid saluted the green knight and bade him welcome the green knight said that he would not tarry he was seeking the most valiant that he might prove him he came in peace but he had a halberd at home and a helmet too king arthur assured him that he should not fail to find an opponent worthy of him i seek no fight said the knight here are only beardless children here is no man to match me still if any be bold enough to strike a stroke for another this axe shall be his but i shall give him a stroke in return within a twelvemonth and a day fear kept all silent while the knight rolled his red eyes about and bent his grisly green brows waving his beard awhile he exclaimed "'What, then? Is this Arthur's court?' Forsooth the renown of the round table is overturned with the word of one man's speech.

Arthur grew red for shame, and waxed as wroth as the wind.

Would Countess...

Would Countess try and decapitate the Green Knight?

I think she probably...

I think she probably would not try to decapitate the Green Knight.

Now, if it...

If it happened that she accidentally tried to decapitate the Green Knight and thus allowed the Green Knight to try to chop off her head, she would go through all that, I think.

She walks up to him and her intentions are just to walk him on the hand or something, but she trips and accidentally decapitated him.

You get to see it.