Any discussion of Christmas and literature brings to mind instantly the miserly figure of Scrooge and the ghosts in Dickens’ Christmas Carol. It is not likely, however, that such a discussion would bring to mind the medieval classic, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Yet this epic of the Middle Ages, written by an anonymous poet and translated most famously from an archaic English dialect by J.R.R. Tolkien, begins in the Christmas season. Since many will not know of this festive gem, I’d like to offer as my own gift to the reader this short retelling of the story, alternating between Tolkien’s translation and my own words.

The action commences in the court of King Arthur during the festive season:

The king lay at Camelot at Christmas-tide

with many a lovely lord, lieges most noble,

indeed of the Table Round all those tried brethren

amid merriment unmatched and mirth without care.

Continuing with the alliteration with which Anglo-Saxon literature is littered, we are told of tournaments with “trusty knights” and of “gentle lords” jousting joyously. The merriment included the playing of carols, accompanied no doubt by singing, and there’s no doubt that King Arthur and his merry men knew how to have a great party:

For there the fest was unfailing full fifteen days,

with all meats and all mirth that men could devise,

such gladness and gaiety as was glorious to hear,

din of voices by day, and dancing by night….

The celebration continues through to the New Year, which is seen in ceremoniously with prayer. After “the chanting of the choir in the chapel had ended”, the party continued with priests and laity making merry:

With loud clamour and cries both clerks and laymen

Noel announced anew, and named it full often;

then nobles ran anon with New Year gifts,

Handsels, handsels they shouted, and handed them out,

Competed for those presents in playful debate;

ladies laughed loudly, though they lost the game,

and he that won was not woeful, as may well be believed.

All this merriment they made, till their meat was served;

then they washed, and mannerly went to their seats….

Queen Guinevere was “gay with grace” and King Arther, with true Christian chivalry “would not eat until all were served”:

So his face doth proud appear,

and he stands up stout and tall,

all young in the New Year;

much mirth he makes with all.

All was well and all manner of things was well until a ghostly green giant of knight gatecrashed the party, mounted on a horse:

For hardly had the music but a moment ended,

and the first course in the court as was custom been served,

when there passed through the portals a perilous horseman,

the mightiest on middle-earth in measure of height …

that half a troll upon earth at least I declare him….

It was not, however, the size of the knight which caused the greatest stir but the colour of his skin:

For at the hue men gaped aghast

in his face and form that showed;

as a fay-man fell he passed,

and green all over glowed.

“All of green were made, both garments and man,” and even his horse was of the same hue:

a green horse great and thick,

a stallion stiff to quell,

in broidered bridle quick:

he matched his master well.

The Green Knight held a bundle of holly in one hand, “that is greatest in greenery when groves are leafless”, and in his other hand he wielded a mighty axe, “ugly and monstrous”.

King Arthur saluted and greeted this strangest of strangers, “freely with fair words, for fearless was he ever”, and welcomed him to Camelot, inviting him to join the festivities. The horseman refused the invitation, declaring that he had come with another errand in mind. He had no wish for combat but desired only that King Arthur would grant him one wish:

“… if thou be so bold, as abroad is published,

thou wilt grant of thy goodness the game that I ask for by right….

I crave in this court only a Christmas pastime,

since it is Yule and New Year, and you are young here and merry.”

The Green Knight then challenged anyone in the court to wield the axe he was holding to strike his naked neck. If the axe-stroke failed to prove mortal, the Green Knight would then take his turn to strike the naked neck of his opponent, who would have a year and a day to present himself for the return stroke. Such was the supernatural fearsomeness of the giant in their midst that none of the Knights of the Round Table was willing to meet his challenge except for the king himself. It was then that Sir Gawain stepped forward:

I am the weakest, I am aware, and in wit feeblest,

and the least loss, if I live not, if one would learn the truth.

Thus, with loyalty and humility, did the least and the last become the first to accept the challenge.

The Green Knight bore his neck for the axe-blow, fearlessly and impassively. Sir Gawain wielded the mighty weapon, raised it and let it fall with a violent swiftness. The blade “shivered the bones and sank clean through the clear fat”, severing the head from the body. The decapitated head rolled across the ground and blood burst from the Green Knight’s neck. The headless body strolled across to the head, picked it up and held it aloft. The eyes of the severed head opened and its lips spoke:

See thou get ready, Gawain, to go as thou vowedst,

and as faithfully seek till thou find me, good sir,

as thou hast promised in this place in the presence of these knights.

To the Green Chapel go thou, and get thee, I charge thee,

such a dint as thou has dealt – indeed thou hast earned

 a nimble knock in return on New Year’s morning!

The Knight of the Green Chapel I am known to many,

so if to find me thou endeavour, thou’lt fail not to do so.

Therefore come! Or to be called a craven thou deservest.”

Having been charged with the quest by the Green Knight, Sir Gawain lived what would presumably be the final year of his life in King Arthur’s court. On All Saints Day, he announced to the King that he must set forth on the fateful and presumably fatal journey:

“I must set forth to my fate without fail in the morning,

as God will my guide, the Green Man to seek.”

The next day, on the penitential feast of All Souls, he went to Mass, “that was offered and honoured at the high altar”, and took his leave of the lords and ladies of the court, “and they kissed him and escorted him, and to Christ him commended”.

The following weeks of his quest would prove to be truly purgatorial as he sought in vain for any news of the Green Knight’s whereabouts. During the whole of the penitential season of Advent he wandered helplessly but not quite hopelessly through the wilds of Wales:

Well-nigh slain by the sleet he slept ironclad

more nights than enow in the naked rocks,

where clattering from the crest the cold brook tumbled,

and hung high o’er his head in hard icicles.

He was weather-beaten and also beaten, it seemed, in the quest to find the abode of his adversary until the night before Christmas:

Thus in peril and pain and in passes grievous

till Christmas-eve that country he crossed all alone in need.

The knight did at that tide

His plaint to Mary plead,

Her rider’s road to guide

And to some lodging lead.

It was not, however, for lodging alone that he prayed. “Through many marshes and mires, a man all alone,” he also lamented that he would not be able to attend Mass on the Feast of Our Lord’s Nativity:

troubled lest a truant at that time he should prove

from the service of the sweet Lord, who on that selfsame night

of a maid became man our mourning to conquer.

And therefore sighing he said: “I beseech thee, O Lord,

and Mary, who is the mildest mother most dear,

for some harbour where with honour I might hear the Mass

and thy Matins tomorrow. This meekly I ask,

and thereto promptly I pray with Pater and Ave and Creed.”

Instantly, before he had time to cross himself three times, his prayer was answered when a magnificent castle appeared in the distance. This would prove to be the home of the Knight of the Green Chapel, though Sir Gawain would need to undergo several trials of faith before this would be revealed to him. It is not, however, for the present writer to reveal the rest of the story. His purpose was merely to show the presence of Christmas within the story. He has done what he set out to do. He has fulfilled the quest. He has shown that the Christmas story includes chivalry as well as shepherds, and knights in shining armour as well as wise men bearing gifts. All that remains is to wish happy Christmas to all and to all a good knight!

The featured image is “Illustration from page 82 of The Boy’s King Arthur: the green knight preparing to battle Sir Beaumains – “It hung upon a thorn, and there he blew three deadly notes” (1922). This file is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.