The Mammoth Book of King Arthur (60 page)

ROMAN DE WALEWEIN,
Penninc, completed by Pieter Vostaert (Dutch,
c
1280s), 11,198 lines.

A wonderfully inventive Dutch poem, almost certainly based on an earlier, now lost, story that may not have had anything to do with Arthur or even with Gawain (Walewein). A
Floating Chessboard appears at Arthur’s court, and, as mysteriously, disappears. Walewein vows to obtain it and follows it into a mountain crevice, which closes behind him. He has to battle
dragons and cross a deep river before he finds the owner of the chessboard, King Wunder, but Wunder will only grant him the prize if Walewein gains for him the Sword with Two Rings. And so it
continues, the success of each quest being dependent upon the achievement of another. Walewein is helped by a fox, who is really a transformed prince, and who will only be
restored to his former self upon the achievement of another challenge.

SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT,
anon. (English,
c
1380s), 2,530 lines.

The “treasure of Middle English poetry”, according to Laura Hibbard Loomis in
Arthurian Literature in the Middle Ages
, this is one of the finest of all
Arthurian romances, and it is shocking to think that it has survived in just one single manuscript now held at the British Library. No author has been identified, although internal evidence
suggests that he may have lived in Cheshire, and the Massey family of Dunham Massey may, according to local tradition, have some connection.

The poem is divided into four parts, or “fitts”. The first is set at Arthur’s court at Christmas, when Arthur refuses to start the feast until he has seen or heard of some
marvel. At that point a green giant bursts into the hall riding a green horse and carrying a holly branch (in peace) and a green axe. He is contemptuous of the bravery of Arthur’s court and
demands a game. He challenges any knight to behead him with his axe on the understanding that he can have the return blow one year hence. Gawain accepts the challenge and beheads the knight who
promptly retrieves his head, reminds Gawain of the terms, and leaves.

In the second part, Gawain is travelling north looking for the Green Chapel. He is offered hospitality at a castle and is invited to stay over Christmas until the appointed day. The third part
tells of a strange exchange-of-winnings game. The host says he will give Gawain on three successive days whatever he acquires in his hunt, whilst Gawain must offer in return anything he has won at
the castle. Each day the host’s wife tries to seduce Gawain, but he refuses and simply receives kisses. On the third day he is given a green girdle. Gawain offers up the kisses to his host
but keeps quiet about the girdle.

In the fourth part he heads to the Green Chapel, accompanied
by a guide who tries to dissuade him. At the chapel he offers his neck to the green giant. The giant takes two
swings at Gawain, stopping short each time, but on the third nicks the skin. Gawain is greatly relieved that he has survived, and learns that each swing of the axe was related to his honesty in
giving up his winnings in the exchange game. The nick was because he had kept the girdle. The Green Knight reveals himself as his host, Sir Bercilak de Hautdesert, and tells him that the whole
scheme was devised by Morgan le Fay in order to frighten Guenevere. He allows Gawain to keep the girdle, which he wears back to Arthur’s court, after which all of the courtiers adopt the
girdle as an emblem of honour.

This story is the best-developed treatment of the Beheading Test which had already appeared in several Arthurian tales, starting with the first continuation of
Perceval.
It can be traced
back to the eighth-century Irish
Fled Bricrenn
(“Bricriu’s Feast”), in which the mysterious green knight who challenges those at the feast is called Uath mac Imoman
(“Horror, son of Terror”), and it is the hero Cú Chulainn who takes up the challenge.

THE AWNTYRS OFF ARTHURE AT THE TERNE WATHELYN
(The Adventures of Arthur at the Tarn Wadling), anon. (English, 1390s), 715 lines.

While on a hunting party Guenevere and Gawain become separated from the main party. In hostile weather, they see emerging from Tarn Wadling the ghost of Guenevere’s
mother, which pronounces dire warnings. Gawain asks specifically about the fate awaiting those who take lands not rightfully theirs. We now learn that a Scottish knight, Galeron, had lost his lands
to Arthur
through some deceit and that those lands had been given to Gawain. Galeron challenges Gawain to single combat but Arthur stops the fight, restores Galeron’s
lands and admits him to the Round Table.

Tarn Wadling was near High Hesket, a village south of Carlisle, but has long since been drained. The lands listed as Galeron’s (Carrick, Cunningham, Kyle, Cumnock, Lanark, Loudon Hill) are
all in Ayr and Galloway. This area had long been one of territorial disputes between the Lords of Galloway and the Scottish kings, and the problem took a further turn after 1306 across the entire
Scottish borders with the “Disinherited”. These were English knights who had been granted land in Scotland by Edward I, but found those lands confiscated by Robert the Bruce. These
tales were almost certainly written for the dispossessed English nobility of the north, who looked to Edward I as their Arthur. A Scottish version of this poem was circulating by the 1440s under
the title
Sir Gawan and Sir Galeron of Galloway.

SYRE GAWENE AND THE CARLE OF CARLYLE,
anon. (English,
c
1400), 715 lines.

A short poem, part of which is lost, but part of which also exists in a later form. The later version may have been revised to conform with
Gawain and the Green Knight
,
but the earlier version seems to have been derived from an older text. It has the same setting as
The Awntyrs off Arthure.
The inclusion of Bishop Baldwin harks back to the early Welsh
tales. Gawain, Kay and Baldwin are lost after a day’s hunting and take shelter at the hall of the notorious giant, the Carl of Carlisle. The poem then satirises the so-called courtly virtues
of Arthur’s court, showing both Kay and Baldwin
as discourteous when the Carl imposes several tests of bravery. Gawain, however, remains upright and virtuous and is
rewarded by the Carl. In the early version, the Carl is magically transformed back into human form, but in the later version Gawain achieves this by beheading the Carl. See also
The Avowing of
King Arthur.

THE WEDDING OF SIR GAWAIN AND DAME RAGNELL
, anon. (English,
c
l450s), 855 lines.

This verse romance is the culmination of both the “land dispute” theme and the “what-do-women-desire-most” problem, merged with the popular
“Loathly Lady” motif. Once more the story starts with a hunt in Inglewood Forest. Arthur is confronted by the knight Gromer Somer Jour, who challenges Arthur with taking his lands and
giving them to Gawain. Arthur promises reparation if the challenge can be deferred for a year. Gromer agrees, but only if in that time Arthur finds an answer to the question, what is it that women
love best? Back at his court Arthur discusses the matter with Gawain, and they agree to search throughout the land for an answer. After much time, with no answer, Arthur returns to Carlisle. He
encounters the most hideous woman he has ever seen, who identifies herself as Dame Ragnell (in some versions Ragnall). She promises to reveal the answer to the question provided she can marry
Gawain. Gawain agrees, and Ragnell tells Arthur that what women most desire is sovereignty over men. Arthur tells Gromer, who also reveals that Ragnell is his sister, whom he despises now more than
ever for he knows he has lost his lands. The wedding of Gawain and Ragnell goes ahead, and when Gawain kisses his bride she turns into a beautiful lady. She explains that he must decide whether he
wants her beautiful by day and ugly by night, or vice versa. Gawain cannot choose and leaves the decision up to her, at which point
she declares that she has gained what she
most desired and thereafter she will remain beautiful by night and day. Ragnell becomes the mother of Guinglain but she dies after only five years.

Chaucer used a variant of the theme in “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” (
c
l390), in which an unnamed Arthurian knight, who has raped a maiden, will be pardoned by the queen
only if he can answer the question: what do women most desire? He likewise finds an old hag who has the answer, but demands that they marry. He also must choose whether she is to be ugly and
faithful, or beautiful but unfaithful. It seems likely that Chaucer’s version and the Gawain version both derive from some lost earlier version which could date back many centuries. A later
ballad version of the Gawain story is
The Marriage of Sir Gawain
(late 15th century).

GOLAGROS AND GAWANE
, anon. (Scottish,
c
l490s), 1,362 lines.

A Scottish poem which miraculously survives in only one copy of the printed version (from 1508), with no known manuscript. It draws its source from two episodes in the first
continuation of
Perceval
, but here places the emphasis on how Gawain’s knightly virtue succeeds where ill manners fail. While they are travelling to the Holy Land, Arthur and his
companions arrive at a beautiful city. Kay enters the town to obtain food but his usual ill temper means he is soon sent packing and Gawain must obtain the food. Later on their travels they come to
a magnificent castle where the lord, Golagros, has striven to be independent of his sovereign. Arthur sends envoys to ask for Golagros’s submission, but none succeeds and it is again left to
Gawain to engineer a satisfactory
conclusion. The story shows the continued influence of the territorial disputes in the Scottish borders.

15

MERLIN – THE MAGIC AND THE MADNESS

1. Geoffrey’s Merlin

The figure of Merlin is as mysterious as that of Arthur, if not more so. Whereas many will argue the case for an historical Arthur, there are fewer who can imagine a genuine
Merlin. As a prophet and magician, he is the key that turns Arthur’s tale from history into fantasy, and from fact into legend. As such, he cannot exist in a rational world. Yet Geoffrey of
Monmouth did not create Merlin from nothing, although he did create the name. And, what’s more, there was not one Merlin, but two.

Geoffrey introduces Merlin in two different texts. First, while he was writing his
Historia
, he was urged by Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, to translate and publish Merlin’s
Prophecies.
As a result, Geoffrey issued the
Prophecies
in advance of the
Historia
in about 1134. He probably drew from several sources, few of which have survived, and
embellished them with his own creativity, but his main source was almost certainly the poem
Armes Prydein
(“The Prophecies of Britain”). Although later attributed to Taliesin,
this poem has been dated by Ifor Williams “without any hesitation” to 930, although much of the content derives from a century or two earlier. This poem refers to the
Dysgogan
Myrdin
(“Prophecies of Myrddin”), and Geoffrey, seeking to convert Myrddin into Latin, halted at the obvious translation
Merdinus
because in Norman French,
merde
meant
dung. Rather than go for the phonetic Merthin or a more literal translation –
Myrddin
translates as “sea fort” (
mor dinn
), which in Latin might be
Maridun
–
Geoffrey substituted an “1” to create Merlin.
Merle
is the old French for “blackbird”, a bird that, while black, is far from sinister,
unlike – say – a crow or raven.