Name:______Date:______Period:______
Medieval Romance Summaries
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Word Bank
Camelot ax day green third Arthur’s Gawain head stay testing neck dishonesty castle admires same rides year humility wounds nephew severs behind Green Chapel Green Knight sash two lord flinches praise punished seduce beheading game failure
A huge knight, dressed all in green appears at Camelot on New Year’s Eve. The Green Knight challenges any man in the court to strike his bare neck with an axe, provided that the Green Knight may do the same to the man in a year and a day. Sir Gawain, the youngest of the knights and nephew to the king, accepts the challenge and severs the Green Knight’s head with one blow. The Green Knight retrieves his head and rides off, reminding Gawain to meet him at the Green Chapel on the proposed day.
One year later, after many dangerous adventures and on his way to keep his appointment with the Green
Knight, Gawain reaches a castle. The lord and lady who reside there invite him to stay for a few days. The lady attempts to seduce Gawain, and even offers him several gifts, but he resists her advances. He keeps, however, her gift of a green sash which, she promises, “charms are woven within,” and he wraps it around his neck. After leaving the castle, Gawain faces the Green Knight. He hears the Knight sharpening his ax inside and prepares himself. The Knight emerges and makes two false strikes, the first because Gawain flinches from fear and the second to praise him for not flinching. The third strike lands, but it only wounds Gawain. It is then that the Green Knight reveals that he is actually the lord (host) of the castle where Gawain has been staying, and that he has been testing Gawain. He explains that he has punished Gawain with this third strike for his dishonesty in hiding the green girdle on the third (last) day of the hunt. He also explains that the old woman at the castle isMorgan Le Faye, a wizardess, who is the power behind the whole “beheading game” and who wanted to test Arthur’s court. An embarrassed Gawain, with the green girdle on his arm as a sign of his failure, returns to Camelot where a hero’s welcome awaits. When he confesses his sins, King Arthur admires his humility and orders the court to wear symbolic green bands in solidarity.
Morte d’Arthur
Word Bank
body kills warn Mordred commanded barge vanish tree Lucan stealing wheel die Bedivere month fatal three sword war Sir Gawain Arthur chapel fighting treaty Excalibur grave waterside hides hand third waves knows
Arthur dreams he is on the Wheel of Fortune, sitting on a throne and dressed in the richest gold that can be made. After the prophetic dream he has another. In his dream, Sir Gawain and a number of ladies come to him to warn him against fighting in the morning for if Arthur fights, he will die; if he waits for a month, Lancelot will be here to help him. Then Gawain and the ladies vanish.
Arthur asks for a truce or a treaty and the two armies meet on the field to set terms. An adder appears, a knight unthinkingly draws his sword to kill it, and the two armies are at war. At the end of the day, Mordred is the only man of his army left standing, and Arthur has only two knights, Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere. Against Sir Lucan's advice, Arthur fights Mordred and kills him, but he gets his own fatal wound as he does it. Lucan and Bedivere take him to a chapel. Robbers overrun the battlefield stealing the gear of dead knights, killing any that have life left in them.
Arthur is dying and cannot be moved to safety. And so he sends Bedivere to throw Excalibur into the lake nearby, then return and tell what he has seen. Bedivere hides the sword under a tree, thinking it too precious to throw away, then returns and says he has obeyed. "What did you see?" Arthur asks. Bedivere says he saw only waves and winds. Arthur sends him twice more, and the third time Bedivere does as he has been commanded. A hand catches the sword and brandishes it three times.
Then at Arthur's command, Bedivere carries the king to the waterside where a barge awaits him and some ladies in black hoods. Bedivere puts Arthur in the barge and he is borne away to Avalon, perhaps to heal his wounds, perhaps to die. Bedivere wanders through a forest until he comes to where a hermit is kneeling over a fresh grave. It is the grave of a man brought to him at midnight by ladies in black. Whether or not the grave is really that of Arthur, no one knows.