Gawain
Gawain EuropeIn Malory's Morte d' Arthur, published by Caxton in 1485, Sir Gawain is the perfect knight, the strict upholder of chivalry and the enemy of Sir Lancelot. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, an earlier alliterative poem, we find this reputation tested, and found wanting, in his strange encounter with Bercilak de Hautdesert, the Green Knight. This adventure began in King Arthur's hall on New Year's Eve, when a green giant challenged the knights to a beheading contest. Sir Gawain accepted and severed the stranger's head in a single blow. To the amazement of the company, the giant behaved as though nothing had happened. Calmly stooping, he picked up the head, and mounted his green charger. Then did the grisly lips move on the bloody head and bid Sir Gawain to meet him at a lonely chapel a year from that day—to receive his share of the axe's keen edge. After many incidents, and temptations not entirely resisted, Sir Gawain kept the...
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