Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Read online

  “I’m sorry to say, my lord,” Gawain replied, laughing, “that kisses are all you’ll get today as well because they’re all I got: but there is at least some good news for you because today I’m going to give you not one, not two, but three!” And saying this, he put his arms around the lord of the castle and kissed him affectionately and noisily three times, each time trying to avoid his bristling beard.

  “I mean no offense, Gawain,” said the lord, “but I have to say that I think you’ve had rather the better of our little game. But then I shouldn’t grumble, for we both played by the rules, did we not?”

  “We did,” Gawain replied, but as he spoke he found it hard to look his friend in the eye.

  That last evening they laid on a magnificent feast for Gawain. The whole castle resounded with caroling and dancing, and as they sat at the table, joyous laughter rang through the rafters. Succulent venison they ate, and crackling pork and all manner of spicy soups that warmed Gawain to the roots of his hair and set his scalp tingling. All evening long, every heart was alive with joy. No one ever once scowled or frowned, not even the usually surly old hag who seemed always to skulk about the castle. She drank her fill like everyone else, and smiled often at Gawain. But Gawain still found her a very troubling presence because when she smiled at him, her eyes seemed to look right through him and see into his soul, where all his darkest secrets lay.

  By now Gawain knew that he had had more than enough to drink and that he must say his farewells whilst he still had his wits about him. He stood up and lifted his goblet in a toast to all his new-found friends around the table. “May God bless you all for your many kindnesses to me these last few days,” he said. “I have spent the most wonderful week of my life with you, basking in the warmth of your company, and I shall never forget it. I’d stay with you if I could, sir, you know I would. I don’t want to go at all, but I must. I am a Knight of the Round Table, and tomorrow I have a promise I must keep. So if you will, lend me the guide you offered me and let him show me the way to the Green Chapel, where I must face whatever God decides my fate should be.”

  The lord now also rose to his feet, and put his arm around Gawain’s shoulder. “Like you, Gawain, I always keep my promises,” he said. “You shall have your guide. He will be ready for you at dawn tomorrow. It is all arranged. He won’t get you lost. Don’t you worry. We’ll get you where you have to go.”

  Then each lady in turn said her sorrowful goodbye to Gawain, kissing him fondly — even that ancient crone had her turn. Then came the lady of the castle, who kissed him most tenderly, looking lovingly into his eyes one last time. The knights too came to embrace him, all of them wishing him good luck and Godspeed, until at last only the lord of the castle was left. “God keep you safe tomorrow, Gawain,” he said, “and until we meet again.”

  Gawain was lost for words as they embraced each other lovingly and parted. Then he stood alone in the empty hall before the dying fire and could think of nothing now but his meeting with the Green Knight the next day. He drank more wine, but even wine could not put it out of his mind. Maybe the silken belt is not enchanted at all, he thought. And even if it is, will it be strong enough to save my neck? Have I the courage to go through with this? Must I do it? Once Gawain was in his bed, these questions would not leave him, would not allow him the blessed oblivion of the sleep he longed for. All that long night he lay awake, hoping and praying most fervently that the green silken belt would save his neck, for he knew nothing else could.

  The first crow of the cockerel sent a shiver of fear through him, but he clenched his jaws and his fists, gathered all his courage, and determined there and then that he would see it through to the end, whatever that end might be. I have looked death in the face before, and without flinching too, he thought. I can do it again. I must or never again call myself a knight. So, keeping that thought firmly in mind now, Gawain got himself up and dressed and ready.

  Outside his window, the snow had fallen all around, silencing all but the crowing cockerel, and even his coarse cry was dulled and deadened by the snow. Servants brought him his mail coat first, cleaned now of any rust, and his body armor, as bright and shining again as it had been when he’d first set out from Camelot. Then he put on once more his scarlet surcoat, fur-lined to protect him against the cold — and of course he did not forget the green silk belt the lady had given him. This he wound securely around his waist, also for protection — not from the cold, but from death itself. He looked fine in it too, the gold thread of the belt glittering in the early sun that now streamed in through the window. It suits me well, this belt, thought Gawain, but I shouldn’t care about what it looks like. It’s the magic in this belt that I need, not its beauty.

  When Gawain came downstairs, the guide was waiting as promised and Gringolet was already saddled in the courtyard. The horse had been well fed and rested in his stable all this time, so his coat shone with health. He was fit and fiery again, fretting feverishly at his bit and tossing high his handsome head. Gawain could see his horse was itching to be off. Once Gawain was mounted, he was handed his helmet and his shield, his sword and his spear. Gringolet was pawing the ground still, but Gawain held him back for a moment. “God keep all who live in this place,” he said, looking up at the castle. “May he bless you for all your many kindnesses shown to me, a stranger. Lord and Lady both, I wish you happiness and good fortune on this earth, and afterward the place in heaven you both so richly deserve.”

  Now, as the drawbridge rattled down, he let Gringolet go at last. No spurs were needed, no squeeze of the legs. Gringolet leaped forward, sparks flying from his hooves, and galloped away over the drawbridge and out onto the snowy plain. Watching him go, the porter at the gate crossed himself three times and commended Gawain to God, for like everyone in the castle, he knew what lay ahead of the knight that day and feared for his life.

  Catching him up after a while, the guide led Gawain on more slowly now, through the mantle of freshly fallen snow. Soon their way took them up into inhospitable hills, where an icy wind chilled their faces, then higher yet onto craggy moorland, where mists hung dark about them. They trudged through stinking bogs, they waded through roaring rivers, until at last they found themselves passing under high overhanging cliffs and into deep dark woods, where the wind whistled wildly through the branches above them.

  When at last they rode out of this dreary place and into the sunlight, Gawain saw that he was on the crown of a hill, below which a sparkling stream flowed gently by. Here the guide, who until now had not spoken a word, reined in his horse and turned to speak to Gawain. “This is the place, Sir Gawain,” he said, and his voice trembled with fear as he spoke. “Follow that stream, and it will lead you to the Green Chapel and the fearsome knight who guards it. No bird sings there. No snow ever falls. No flowers bloom.” Gawain thanked him and made to ride on, but the guide grasped at his reins and held him back. “If you’ll take my advice, Sir Gawain — and I know it is not my place to give it — you should not go any farther. I have too much respect and love for you to let you go on without warning you. The man who awaits you is the most terrible knight alive, a real butcher, I promise you. He is not just the strongest knight that ever lived, but the most savage, the most vicious. He loves to kill and is very good at it too, believe me. No man who has visited the Green Knight of the Green Chapel has ever lived to tell the tale. It’s always the same. We find their bodies downstream, hacked and hewn to pieces. He shows no mercy to anyone, Sir. Page boy or priest, they’re all meat to him. He’ll feed you to the fishes, sir, like all the others. So don’t go, I beg you.” And now he spoke low, in a confidential whisper. “Listen, Sir Gawain. Why not go home another way? No one’ll ever know. I shall tell no one that you changed your mind and thought better of it. Your reputation is safe with me, sir.”

  “Thanks all the same,” Gawain replied, “I know you have only my best interests at heart, and I am grateful to you for that, but I’ve come this far — too far to turn tail and ru
n now. I’m sure you would keep my cowardice a secret, but I would know, and I would not be able to live with myself. I am a Knight of King Arthur’s court, and I have to keep the promise I made, even if I do end up as food for the fish. My courage is fragile enough as it is, so please don’t try to talk me out of it anymore.”

  “I have done all I can to save you,” said the guide, sighing sorrowfully. “If you insist on going to your certain death, Sir Gawain, then I cannot stop you. To find the Green Knight, just ride along the stream until you see the Green Chapel on your left. Cross the stream and call out for him. He’ll come. And then, God help you. No one else can. I shall leave you here, sir. For all the gold in the world I would not go where you are going. Goodbye, Sir Gawain.” And touching his heels to his horse, he rode away and left Gawain alone. Talk is easy enough, Gawain thought, but now I must be as good as my word and try to be the kind of knight I claim to be and others believe me to be.

  So with a heavy heart he urged Gringolet down the hill toward the stream, and as his guide had told him, followed it, looking always for the first glimpse of the Green Chapel on the opposite bank. Still he saw nothing but rode on through a deep ravine with jagged black rocks on either side that reared above him, shutting out the sun almost entirely. This is like the gateway to hell itself, thought Gawain.

  As he came out of this dark ravine at last, the valley widened around him, sunlight falling on a grassy mound beyond the stream, which here ran fast and furious. But still he saw no chapel, green or otherwise. Not a bird sang. There were no flowers, and no snow either. The path looked treacherous ahead of him, so Gawain thought that here might be the best place to cross — for although the stream rushed and roared, he could see the pebbles beneath and so knew it could not be too deep. He spurred Gringolet through the stream and up onto the bank beyond. As he came closer and rode around it, he could see that the grassy mound looked like some kind of burial barrow, with dark gaping entrances on all sides, a place of death.

  Gawain dismounted by a wide oak tree, and leaving Gringolet to rest and graze, he decided to explore farther on foot. This neither looks nor feels like any chapel I’ve seen before, he thought. It seems to me more like the Devil’s lair than God’s holy chapel. Yet it is green, and it is certainly sinister enough to suit the Green Knight.

  Grasping his spear firmly, Gawain walked slowly around the barrow, searching for the Green Knight. He climbed right to the top so that he could see far and wide on all sides. Still he saw no one. But as he stood there, he began to hear from the far side of the stream the sound of grinding, like an ax being sharpened on a stone. Gawain knew at once it was the Green Knight. He fingered his green silk belt nervously, making sure it was tight around him, and as he did so a sudden fierce anger welled up in him and drove away his fear. “If the Green Knight thinks he can frighten me away,” Gawain said to himself, “then he had better think again. I may die today, but I’ll not die frightened. I won’t give him the satisfaction.”

  He summoned up all his courage and called out loud, so loud that his voice could be heard over that incessant horrible rasping. “Gawain is here!” he cried. “Come out and show yourself. I am here as I promised I would be. But I won’t wait forever. Come out and do your worst.”

  “I won’t be long,” came the booming voice that Gawain recognized only too well. “I think my ax needs to be a little bit sharper still — just in case you have a tough neck on you.” And the dreaded man, still hidden from Gawain’s sight somewhere in amongst the rocks beyond the stream, laughed till the hills echoed with it. But some moments later, the last of the grim grinding done, the Green Knight stepped out from a cleft in the rocks, fingering the blade of his ax and smiling a cruel smile.

  He was just as Gawain remembered, except that incredibly, miraculously, his head was on his shoulders again. His hair and beard, green as before. His face and hands, green. And everything he wore was bright green too. He used his ax to vault the stream effortlessly and so crossed without even getting his feet wet, and then with huge strides, came up the hill toward Gawain, growing bigger and broader, it seemed, with every step, until this mountain of a man stood before him, his blood red eyes burning into his. Gawain had forgotten how terrifying those eyes were, but even so he managed to return the Green Knight’s gaze without wavering for a moment.

  “You’re most welcome, Sir Gawain, to my chapel,” said the Green Knight, bowing low. “You’ve done well so far, very well. I said a year and a day from when we last met, and here you are. I said you would find me here at the Green Chapel, and you have. But that was the easy part. From now on you’ll find it a little more difficult, I think. Last time we met, if you remember, I said you could deal me any blow you liked. You showed me no mercy but struck my head from my shoulders. Now, as we both agreed and promised then, it is my turn. So get yourself ready. And don’t expect any mercy from me, either. I will give as good as I got from you.”

  “That was the bargain we made,” Gawain replied, hiding as best he could the fear in his voice. “You don’t hear me complaining, do you?” So he laid aside his helmet and spear and shield. “I’m ready when you are,” he said. And clasping tight the silken belt to still his rising terror — for he knew its magic was all that stood now between him and certain death — Gawain went down on one knee before the Green Knight and gritted his teeth to await the blow.

  Round and round and round whirled the ax just above Gawain’s head so that the terrible breath of it parted his hair as it passed by. “Bare your neck, Sir Gawain,” laughed the Green Knight. “I wouldn’t want to hurt a hair on your head.”

  Gawain gathered his hair and bent his neck. “Get on with it, why don’t you?” he cried.

  “With pleasure,” said the Green Knight. As the ax came down, slicing through the air, Gawain caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye and shrank from the blow. But the blow never came. At the very last moment, the Green Knight held back the blade so that it touched neither the skin nor a single hair on his neck.

  “What’s the matter?” the Green Knight mocked. “The great Gawain is not frightened, is he? I haven’t even touched you, and yet you flinch like a coward. Did I flinch when you made to strike me a year ago? No, I did not. Yet you kneel there shaking like a leaf. Shame on you, Gawain. I had thought better of a Knight of the Round Table.”

  Fuming now at these insults, and at his own weakness too, Gawain bent his head once more. “No more of your talk. This time I won’t flinch. You have my word on it.”

  “We’ll see,” laughed the Green Knight. “We’ll see.” And once again he heaved up his ax high above his head. This time as the blade whistled down, Gawain did not move a muscle. He did not even twitch. But once more the Green Knight held back the blade at the very last moment. “Just practicing, Sir Gawain,” said the Green Knight, smiling down at him. “Just practicing.”

  Now Gawain was blazing with anger. “Next time you’d better do it!” he cried. “It will be your last chance, I promise you. On my knighthood, I promise you that.”

  “Nothing can save you this time, Sir Gawain,” said the Green Knight, wielding his ax. “Not even your precious knighthood will save your neck now.”

  “Do your worst,” Gawain told him, resigned now to his fate. He closed his eyes and waited.

  “As you wish,” said the Green Knight. “Here it comes, then.” He stood, legs apart, readying himself. Gripping his hideous ax, he lifted it high and brought it down with terrible force onto the nape of Gawain’s neck. This time the blade cut through the skin and the flesh beneath, but only a little, just enough to draw blood. No more. No deeper damage was done.

  At the first sharp stab of pain and at the sight of his own blood on the ground, Gawain leaped at once to his feet and drew his sword. “One chance is all you get,” he cried. “I have kept my side of the bargain we made. If you come at me again, I shall defend myself to the death. Mighty though you are, you will feel the full fury of Gawain’s sword.”

  Leani
ng now on his great ax, the Green Knight looked at Gawain and smiled down on him in open admiration. “Small you might be, Gawain,” he said, “but you have the heart and spirit of a lion. Put down your sword. We two have nothing to fight about. All I did, like you, was to keep the deal we made a year and a day ago. A blow for a blow, that was the pact between us. So let us consider the matter settled, shall we — all our debts to each other fully paid.”

  Lowering his sword, Gawain put his hand to his neck and felt how small a cut it was. “I don’t understand,” he said, as bewildered now as he was relieved. “You could easily have cut off my head with one blow. Yet you took three, and then you just nicked me. I lopped yours off at one stroke back at King Arthur’s court. I showed you no mercy. Yet you spared my life. Why?”

  The Green Knight stepped forward and offered Gawain his scarf to staunch his bleeding. “Think yourself back, Sir Gawain,” he began, “to the castle you have just left. Think yourself back to the Christmas game you played with the lord of that castle.”

  “But how do you know about that?” Gawain asked.

  “All in good time, Sir Gawain,” laughed the Green Knight. “All in good time. Three times you and he promised to exchange whatever it was you managed to come by. The first time you were as good as your word, as was the lord of the castle — a kiss in exchange for a deer, I believe it was. Am I right?” Gawain could only nod — he was too astonished to speak. “So that was why just now I teased you the first time with my ax, and did not even touch you. Then, the second day at the castle, you again did just what you had promised. What was it? Two kisses for a giant boar — and what a boar that was too! Not a great bargain for the lord of the castle, but an honest one, and that’s all that counts. Your neck is bleeding, my friend, because of what happened back at the castle on the third day. On that day, when the lord returned from his hunt and presented you with that cunning old fox, all you gave him in return, I seem to recall, were the three kisses you received from his beautiful wife. But you forgot to hand over to me the green silken belt she gave you, the enchanted belt that could save your life, the one you’re wearing now around your waist.”