Recap: After searching for the Green Chapel, Gawain arrives at the castle of Lord Bertilak and Lady Hautdesert. There he undergoes a strange testing by the Lady. He resists a seeming offer of erotic intimacy, but accepts a green sash that she claims will protect him from any harm. By taking it he has broken the essential code of Chivalric loyalty to one’s word. Gawain is utilising subterfuge.
First light Gawain rides out from the castle, no breakfast, no choir, no big farewell. No fire is lit, no happy hound barks. Everyone is out of sight. All the laughter, toasts, shy glances, swallowed up and gone. Just our man and a guide who begs him to take some other route, to see sense and abandon this clear peril. But Gawain is distracted by a persistent, unpleasant noise. He’s heard it before.
The grinding of an axe fills the valley, the woods, the copses and bogs.
Animals shrink from it, birds cringe on the branch. It is no hard thing for Gawain to follow the sound, no hard thing for Gawain to find the chapel. The air sparks and groans with appalment. Yes, even a fool could find it.
Beyonde the broke, in a bonk, a wonder Kreme noyse.
Quat! hit clatered in the cliff as hit cleve schulde,
As one upon a gryndelston hade grounded a sythe.
Ahead. Waiting in a great dripping lump of mossy cave is the Green Knight. Weirder somehow than before. More terrible.
Good. You honour the game.
Gawain steps into the chapel and kneels in front of the being. Just as the knight raises his axe, Gawain flinches, just a little.
Keep still man! I gave you a year to find your courage, a year to deepen your chivalry. Now kneel as I knelt. Give what I have.
This time Gawain is immobile, like granite, chastened and now stilled. He fills his mind bright with Christ and surrenders. Who knows if the belt will work? He closes his eyes.
Into your arms
I commit myself.