Ancient and Countless Pagan Threads in a Courtly Tapestry: The Case of 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'

Abstract

The fourteenth century Arthurian romance, 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight', is a highly moral and Christian mediaeval poem which also echoes, or makes use of, many highly significant if also extremely allusive narrative elements from earlier or pagan Western European folklore. These include, amongst so many obvious others: the wandering of the hero alone in the primeval wilderness; his brief passages with the elemental monsters which may dwell in such regions; and a further close encounter with a dangerous and enigmatic being, in this case the Green Knight, a figure of great if unspecified power, and possessed of an ambiguous nature and background, and who may be largely responsible for the core theme of testing, endangering this hero's soul.