THE GREEN KNIGHT
From the book King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, by: Roger Lancelyn Green
I am The Green Knight. I live in a small
green chapel in the middle of a small forest. It is green everywhere
so to speak. With my wife I
live happily. I sometimes rideout to challenge noble knights to cut off
my head!
Then one year later I must repay them the blow they payed me, only one
such knight sticks in my mind! Sir Gawain was there that nights Christmas
feast on the pentacost. I offered to the assembled knights “If any
knight is brave enough to lop off my head, if I can deal the same blow
back to that person a year after.” All the knights were silent
until Sir Gawain stepped foreward. Taking my axe he chopped my head off!
Riding off to my chapel with my head in one hand, I waited a year for him to
return. The year went by and he came three days before the day of pentacost.
I invited him in and each day I went out to get food. We had a deal, whatever
he would get he would give to me in return for my hunted game.
The first day he gave me a kiss my wife had given him. The second day he gave
me two kisses my wife had given him. The third day my wife gave him three kisses,
and a particular piece of green lace from her clothing. Sir Gawain did not
want it, but when she told him the man wearing it couldn’t die, he took
it. When I came back I gave him my three days worth of game and he gave me
three
kisses. So he went out and found the Green Chapel. I came out to him and swung
the axe once. The first time he flinched. So I swung again, and I missed. The
third time I swung and made a small cut on his neck. He stood up and I told
him that the first two strikes I missed so far two promises kept - the three
kisses,
and that the third blow was for a promise kept and broken. The kisses you gave
me, the lace you did not! So I bade that he should leave with the lace as a
parting gift! So after hereing this he rode away.