Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

At the climax of Sir Gawain, Lord Bertilak and the Green Knight are revealed to be one and the same man: the enchantress Morgan le Fay cast a spell on Bertilak so that he could test the reputation of King Arthur’s court. Setting aside the Green Knight’s coloring, the two men do in fact bear a strong physical resemblance to each other; both are powerfully built, bearded, middle-aged men. Likewise, Lord Bertilak’s speech and actions often echo those of the Green Knight; the bargain he strikes with Gawain to exchange their days’ winnings mirrors the reciprocal challenge the Green Knight proposes.

Nevertheless, the two men are distinct characters in terms of their function and symbolism. Although he lives outside the bounds of Camelot’s influence, Bertilak generally conforms to the ideal of a medieval lord: he is a gracious and generous host, a devout Christian, and a skilled hunter. In contrast, while the Green Knight does observe the conventions of chivalry in the terms of his challenge, he is a much less “civilized” character in other respects. The poet, for instance, repeatedly describes the Green Knight’s demeanor as “roisterous” (i.e. rowdy), and his behavior and mannerisms often seem calculated to shock and frighten his audience: “[H]is red eyes he rolled all about, / Bent his bristling brows, that were bright green, / Wagged his beard as he watched who would arise” (304-306).

The Knight’s green color is the clearest indication of his wildness, tying him both to the natural world and to Britain’s pre-Christian mythology (in particular, the pagan figure of the Green Man, typically associated with the coming of spring). The fact that the Green Knight is seemingly immortal, as he is able to survive his own beheading, further links him to nature and its cyclical patterns of renewal. In Sir Gawain, this pagan imagery ultimately converges with the work’s Christian message, as the moral lesson the Green Knight teaches inspires a form of spiritual renewal in Gawain.

Lady Bertilak is Lord Bertilak’s young and beautiful wife: “The fair hues of her flesh, her face and her hair / And her body and her bearing were beyond praise, / And excelled the queen herself” (943-945). She initially appears in the guise of a courteous hostess, chatting amiably with Sir Gawain and providing him with food and drink. However, on the first day that her husband goes hunting, Lady Bertilak’s kindness to Gawain appears to reveal ulterior motives; over the course of three mornings, she visits Gawain in his bedchamber and grows bolder and bolder in her attempts to seduce him. In doing so, she reveals herself to be clever and quick-witted, often playing on Gawain’s chivalrousness in order to claim kisses from him. Though she ultimately fails to seduce Gawain completely, her aggressive efforts to do so mask her primary goal of tempting him to accept the green girdle: Gawain, having resisted the sexual temptation Lady Bertilak poses, agrees to take the girdle that she claims will offer him immunity to any injury.

Lady Bertilak’s character receives yet another twist in the work’s final lines, when her husband reveals that she was acting on his orders all along. Far from being an unfaithful wife, Lady Bertilak is an exceptionally obedient one, but this revelation does not stop Gawain from lamenting the treachery of women. The poem’s conclusion, therefore, reframes Lady Bertilak and her actions in a way that neutralizes much of her agency and intelligence, restoring her to her subordinate position as a medieval woman.

King Arthur’s prominence as a figure in British lore gives him an outsized presence in Sir Gawain, considering how little he actually appears in the poem. By the time the work was written, King Arthur was well established in legend as an idealized leader: a brave and wise king whose court at Camelot represents the pinnacle of chivalric values. In many works, including Sir Gawain, Arthur is also depicted as a link between Britain and the glories of Greek and Roman antiquity; in Sir Gawain’s opening lines, the poet traces the founding of Britain through the Roman Felix Brutus and, via Aeneas, back to the legendary city of Troy.

Nevertheless, Sir Gawain’s depiction of King Arthur does differ from others in key ways. In keeping with the work’s overall portrayal of the court, Arthur himself comes across as somewhat frivolous, insisting on being treated to some form of entertainment before sitting down to feast: “[H]e would never eat / […] till he had heard first / Of some fair feat or fray some far-borne tale” (91-93). As well, Arthur is initially the only member of the court willing to take up the Green Knight’s challenge, proving not only his courage but the pride he takes in the honor of his court. 

As Lord Bertilak ultimately reveals, the mysterious old woman who is often at Lady Bertilak’s side is Morgan le Fay: an enchantress and King Arthur’s half-sister. She was, at one point, the sorcerer Merlin’s lover, and in Sir Gawain, she uses her magical powers to transform Lord Bertilak into the Green Knight; in fact, it’s Morgan le Fay who sends Lord Bertilak in the guise of the Green Knight to King Arthur’s court in order to “afflict the fair queen, and frighten her to death / With awe of that elvish man” (2460-2461). Her reasons for doing so are never explained, although her rivalry with Guenevere does feature in other Arthurian legends; in Sir Gawain she serves a foil to the queen: old rather than young, and openly rather than covertly sexually disobedient.

The ambiguity of Morgan le Fay is reflective of her status in Arthurian tradition. As a character, she likely grew out of pre-Christian Welsh mythology—origins suggested by Lord Bertilak when he calls her “Morgan the Goddess” (2452). Her stature at Lord Bertilak’s court reflects the extent to which the work—though explicitly Christian in outlook—incorporates elements of paganism.