Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the masterpiece of Middle English Arthurian literature. Written in the late fourteenth century by an unknown poet from the north-west Midlands of England — the same poet who probably wrote Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience — it survives in a single manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x, now in the British Library. Its 2,530 lines, in alliterative verse with short rhyming “bob and wheel” stanzas, tell a story of a strange challenge, a winter journey, a seduction, and a test of honour — and of the one small failing of the most courteous knight of the Round Table.
The poem was almost forgotten for four centuries until it was published in 1839. Today it is one of the most translated and studied poems in English. For the knight’s wider story, see Gawain: The Knight of Courtesy.
The Challenge
At Christmas, King Arthur and his court were feasting at Camelot. Arthur, young and restless, refused to eat until he had heard of some marvel.
The marvel arrived. Into the hall rode a gigantic knight, entirely green — his skin, his hair, his beard, his clothing, and even his horse. He carried a bunch of holly in one hand, a sign of peace, and in the other a huge axe. He wore no armour.
He had come, he said, to test the famous courage of the Round Table. He proposed a Christmas game: any knight could strike him one blow with his axe, on condition that, a year and a day later, the Green Knight could return the blow.
The hall fell silent. The Green Knight mocked them: was this the famous court of Arthur? Arthur, stung, took up the axe himself. But Gawain, the king’s nephew, asked for the honour, calling himself the weakest knight and the one whose life would be least missed.
Gawain swore to seek out the Green Knight a year later to receive the return blow. The Green Knight knelt and bared his neck. Gawain swung the axe and cut off his head. The head rolled across the floor among the knights’ feet.
The Green Knight did not fall. He stood up, walked over, picked up his head by the hair, and mounted his horse. Holding his head up, the head opened its eyes and spoke: Gawain must come to the Green Chapel in a year and a day to receive his blow. Then he rode out of the hall.
The Passing of the Year
The poet describes the passing of the seasons in a famous passage: the Lent fasts, the warm spring rains, the summer winds, the autumn harvest, and the return of winter. Then, on All Hallows’ Day, Gawain set out.
He armed himself in splendour, and on his shield was painted the pentangle, the five-pointed star — the “endless knot” — symbolizing his perfection in five times five virtues, and inside the shield was an image of the Virgin Mary.
The Winter Journey
Gawain rode north through North Wales and the wild country of the Wirral, searching for the Green Chapel. He fought dragons, wolves, wild men, bulls, bears, boars, and giants — the poet lists them in a single stanza — but worse than all these was the cold. He slept in his armour on bare rocks, with icicles hanging above him.
On Christmas Eve, he prayed to Mary for a place to hear Mass. Immediately, he saw a magnificent castle among the trees.
The Castle of Bertilak
The lord of the castle, a huge, jovial man with a broad red beard, welcomed him warmly. His name, revealed only at the end, was Sir Bertilak de Hautdesert. His wife was more beautiful even than Guinevere. With her was an ugly old woman, heavily wrapped, whom everyone treated with honour.
When Gawain explained his quest, the lord told him that the Green Chapel was only two miles away. He should rest until New Year’s Day.
The lord proposed a game. Each day for three days, he would go hunting, and Gawain would stay in the castle and rest. At the end of each day, they would exchange whatever they had won.
The Three Temptations
On each of the three days, while her husband was out hunting, the lady came to Gawain’s bedroom and tried to seduce him. The poet interweaves the three hunting scenes — each described in brilliant, bloody detail — with the three bedroom scenes.
Day One: The lord hunted deer. The lady came to Gawain’s bed, playfully pinned him there, and offered herself to him. Gawain, torn between courtesy and chastity, politely deflected her. She accused him of not being the true Gawain, since the real Gawain would never let a lady leave without a kiss. He gave her one kiss. That evening, the lord gave Gawain the venison, and Gawain gave the lord a kiss, but refused to say where he had won it.
Day Two: The lord hunted a fierce boar. The lady returned and pressed Gawain harder, asking him to teach her about love. He kept his courtesy and his chastity. She gave him two kisses. That evening, he exchanged them for the boar’s head.
Day Three: The lord hunted a fox. The lady came dressed in her most beautiful clothes. Gawain was sorely tempted. He gave her three kisses, but nothing more. Then she offered him a gift — a ring, which he refused — and then her green silk girdle. It had magic power, she said: whoever wore it could not be killed.
Gawain, thinking of the blow that awaited him, accepted. She begged him to hide it from her husband.
That evening, the lord gave Gawain the fox’s skin. Gawain gave the lord three kisses. But he did not give him the girdle.
The Green Chapel
On New Year’s morning, Gawain set out in a snowstorm with a guide, who tried to persuade him to flee and promised to keep it secret. Gawain refused.
The Green Chapel was not a chapel at all but a grassy mound with a hollow in it, like an ancient barrow, beside a stream. Gawain heard the sound of an axe being sharpened on a grindstone. The Green Knight appeared.
Gawain bared his neck. The Green Knight raised his axe — and Gawain flinched. The knight mocked him: Gawain had not flinched when he struck. Gawain promised not to flinch again.
The second time, the Green Knight raised the axe and stopped, pretending to aim. Gawain did not move. The third time, the Green Knight struck — and only nicked the side of Gawain’s neck, drawing a little blood.
Gawain leapt up, drew his sword, and declared that the bargain was fulfilled.
The Revelation
The Green Knight laughed. He revealed that he was Bertilak, the lord of the castle. The three blows matched the three days:
- The first two blows missed because Gawain had honestly given back the kisses of the first two days.
- The third blow nicked him because on the third day he had kept the girdle.
It was a small fault, the Green Knight said, committed not out of wickedness or lust but out of love of life. Gawain was the most faultless knight who ever lived.
The whole adventure had been devised by the old woman in the castle — Morgan le Fay, Arthur’s half-sister and Gawain’s aunt. She had sent the Green Knight to Camelot to test the pride of the Round Table and to frighten Queen Guinevere to death (see Morgan le Fay).
Gawain’s Shame
Gawain was overwhelmed with shame. He cursed his cowardice and covetousness, and flung the girdle back at the Green Knight. But Bertilak gave it back to him as a keepsake. Gawain resolved to wear it for the rest of his life, as a reminder of his failing.
He returned to Camelot and confessed everything. Arthur and the court laughed kindly, and all the knights agreed to wear a green sash in honour of Gawain.
The manuscript ends with the motto Hony soyt qui mal pence (“Shame on him who thinks evil of it”) — the motto of the Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III around 1348, suggesting a link between the poem and the order.
What the Poem Means
The poem invites many readings:
- A test of chivalry. Gawain embodies the ideals of knighthood, and the poem tests whether any human can live up to them. He nearly does.
- Courtesy versus chastity. The lady’s temptations set two of Gawain’s virtues against each other: to refuse her rudely would be discourteous; to accept would betray his host and God.
- The love of life. Gawain’s fault is simply that he wants to live. The poem treats it with understanding.
- The Green Man. The Green Knight’s greenness, his holly, and his ability to survive beheading suggest a figure of nature and renewal — like the foliate “Green Man” carved in medieval churches — who dies in winter and returns.
- The Celtic beheading game. The challenge comes from Irish myth. In the Old Irish Fled Bricrenn (“Bricriu’s Feast,” eighth century), a giant churl challenges the heroes of Ulster to a beheading game. Only Cú Chulainn keeps his promise to return and bare his neck, and the giant, revealed as the enchanter Cú Roí, spares him and declares him the champion of Ulster (see Cú Chulainn).
Last reviewed: September 2026.