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Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Although there have been countless knights over the course of the Middle Ages, to this day still there are few who are more well-known than those of King Arthur's Round Table. As mentioned in the story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the fame of the Knights of the Round Table was renowned even in the time of King Arthur, which is rather uncommon. As the story goes, the Green Knight enters King's Arthur's palace at Camelot at the time of New Year's, and challenges any one of the Round Table Knights who is brave enough to accept to a deadly game. The Green Knight announces that whoever accepts his challenge will be allowed a single swing of the knight's double-bladed axe if the challenger will take a return blow from the knight in exactly one year and one day's time. At first it is King Arthur himself who accepts this mysterious knight's challenge, for he knows no fear, as the poem mentions. Plus when this strange Green Knight first offers up his challenge and no one at the table moves, the knight doesn't even hesitate in mocking that court that is so famed throughout the lands, as stated by the knight, "Hah! Is this Arthur's house, hailed across the world, that fabled court? Where have your conquests gone to, and your pride, where is your anger, and those awesome boasts? And now the Round Table's fame and its feasting are done, thrown down at the sound of one man's words- and you sit there shaking- at words!"(Ll. 309-315) As Arthur moves to strike the Green Knight with his own axe, the noble Sir Gawain, Arthur's very own nephew, stops the king before he can swing. This noble knight very humble exclaims to his uncle and his king that he should take up the challenge instead of the good king, for as he says, "And I am the slightest, the dullest of them all; my life the least, my death no loss- my only worth is you, my royal Uncle, all my virtue is through you. And this foolish business fits my station, not yours: let me...