Child No. 31: The Marriage of Sir Gawain
[There is one claimed US version of Child 31 titled, Sir Gaunie and the Witch, collected by John Jacob Niles which the Traditional Ballad Index says is "of doubtful authenticity."
Another ballad, "The Half-Hitch" with a similar theme as The Marriage of Sir Gawain, has been found in the US. Some collectors (Barry/Flanders) and performers (Peggy Seeger) list it as a version of Child 31. Coffin flatly states: "To call 'The Half-Hitch' a form of Child 31 is to stretch the concept of the secondary ballad to its limits."
I'm listing the US related versions usually titled, "The Half-Hitch," as No. 31 Appendix or 31 A.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative
2. Footnotes
3. Brief (Kittredge)
4. Child's Ballad Text A
5. Endnotes
6. Additions and Corrections
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: The Marriage of Sir Gawain
A. Roud Number 3966: The Marriage of Sir Gawain (5 Listings)
B. On the Loathly Bride- Coomaraswamy 1945
2. English and Other Versions (Including Child version A with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative
[Footnotes moved to the end of the narrative]
A. Percy Manuscript, p. 46. Hales & Furnivall, I, 105; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 288; Percy's Reliques, ed. 1794, III, 350.
We have here again half a ballad, in seven fragments, but the essentials of the story, which is well known from other versions, happen to be preserved, or may be inferred.
Arthur, apparently some day after Christmas, had been encountered at Tarn Wadling,[1] in the forest of Inglewood, by a bold baron armed with a club, who offered him the choice of fighting, or ransoming himself by coming back on New Year's day and bringing word what women most desire. Arthur puts this question in all quarters, and having collected many answers, in which, possibly, he had little confidence, he rides to keep his day. On the way he meets a frightfully ugly woman; she intimates that she could help him. Arthur promises her Gawain in marriage, if she will, and she imparts to him the right answer. Arthur finds the baron waiting for him at the tarn, and presents first the answers which he had collected and written down. These are contemptuously rejected. Arthur then says that he had met a lady on a moor, who had told him that a woman would have her will. The baron says that the misshapen lady on the moor was his sister, and he will burn her if he can get hold of her. Upon Arthur's return he tells his knights that he has a wife for one of them, and they ride with the king to see her, or perhaps for her to make her choice. When they see the bride, they decline the match in vehement terms, all but Gawain, who is somehow led to waive "a little foul sight and misliking." She is bedded in all her repulsiveness, and turns to a beautiful young woman. To try Gawain's compliance further, she asks him whether he will have her in this likeness by night only or only by day. Putting aside his own preference, Gawain leaves the choice to her, and this is all that is needed to keep her perpetually beautiful. For a stepmother had witched her to go on the wild moor in that fiendly shape until she should meet some knight who would let her have all her will. Her brother, under a like spell, was to challenge men either to fight with him at odds or to answer his hard question.
These incidents, with the variation that Arthur (who does not show all his customary chivalry in this ballad) waits for Gawain's consent before he promises him in marriage, are found in a romance, probably of the fifteenth century, printed in Madden's Syr Gawayne, and somewhat hastily pronounced by the editor to be "unquestionably the original of the mutilated poem in the Percy folio."[2]
Arthur, while hunting in Ingleswood, stalked and finally shot a great hart, which fell in a fern-brake. While the king, alone and far from his men, was engaged in making the assay, there appeared a groom, bearing the quaint name of Gromer Somer Joure,[3] who grimly told him that he meant now to requite him for having taken away his lands. Arthur represented that it would be a shame to knighthood for an armed man to kill a man in green, and offered him any satisfaction. The only terms Gromer would grant were that Arthur should come back alone to that place that day twelvemonth, and then tell him what women love best; not bringing the right answer, he was to lose his head. The king gave his oath, and they parted. The knights, summoned by the king's bugle, found him in heavy cheer, and the reason he would at first tell no man, but after a while took Gawain into confidence. Gawain advised that they two should ride into strange country in different directions, put the question to every man and woman they met, and write the answers in a book. This they did, and each made a large collection. Gawain thought they could not fail, but the king was anxious, and considered that it would be prudent to spend the only month that was left in prosecuting the inquiry in the region of Ingleswood. Gawain agreed that it was good to be speering, and bade the king doubt not that some of his saws should help at need.
Arthur rode to Ingleswood, and met a lady, riding on a richly-caparisoned palfrey, but herself of a hideousness which beggars words; nevertheless the items are not spared. She came up to Arthur and told him that she knew his counsel; none of his answers would help. If he would grant her one thing, she would warrant his life; otherwise, he must lose his head. This one thing was that she should be Gawain's wife. The king said this lay with Gawain; he would do what he could, but it were a pity to make Gawain wed so foul a lady. " No matter," she rejoined, " though I be foul: choice for a mate hath an owl. When thou comest to thine answer, I shall meet thee; else art thou lost."
The king returned to Carlisle with a heart no lighter, and the first man he saw was Gawain, who asked how be had sped. Never so ill: he had met a lady who had offered to save his life, but she was the foulest he had ever seen, and the condition was that Gawain should be her husband. "Is that all?" said Gawain. "I will wed her once and again, though she were the devil; else were I no friend." Well might the king exclaim, "Of all knights thou bearest the flower!"
After five or six days more the time came for the answer. The king had hardly ridden a mile into the forest when he met the lady, by name Dame Ragnell. He told her Gawain should wed her, and demanded her answer. "Some say this and some say that, but above all things women desire to have the sovereignty; tell this to the knight; he will curse her that told thee, for his labor is lost." Arthur, thus equipped, rode on as fast as he could go, through mire and fen. Gromer was waiting, and sternly demanded the answer. Arthur offered his two books, for Dame Ragnell had told him to save himself by any of those answers if he could. "Nay, nay, king," said Gromer, "thou art but a dead man." "Abide, Sir Gromer, I have an answer shall make all sure. Women desire sovereignty." "She that told thee that was my sister, Dame Ragnell; I pray I may see her burn on a fire." And so they parted.
Dame Ragnell was waiting for Arthur, too, and would hear of nothing but immediate fulfillment of her bargain. She followed the king to his court, and required him to produce Gawain instantly, who came and plighted his troth. The queen begged her to be married privately, and early in the morning. Dame Ragnell would consent to no such arrangement. She would not go to church till high-mass time, and she would dine in the open hall. At her wedding she was dressed more splendidly than the queen, and she sat at the head of the table at the dinner afterwards. There her appetite was all but as horrible as her person: she ate three capons, three curlews, and great bake meats, all that was set before her, less and more.[4]
A leaf is wanting now, but what followed is easily imagined. She chided Gawain for his offishness, and begged him to kiss her, at least. "I will do more," said Gawain, and, turning, beheld the fairest creature he ever saw. But the transformed lady told him that her beauty would not hold: he must choose whether she should be fair by night and foul by day, or fair by day and foul by night.[5] Gawain said the choice was hard, and left all to her. "Gramercy," said the lady, "thou shalt have me fair both day and night." Then she told him that her step-dame had turned her into that monstrons shape by necromancy, not to recover her own till the best knight in England had wedded her and given her sovereignty in all points.[6] A charming little scene follows, vv 715-99, in which Arthnr visits Gawain in the morning, fearing lest the fiend may have slain him. Something of this may very likely have been in that half page of the ballad which is lost after stanza 48.
Gower and Chancer both have this tale, though with a different setting, and with the variation, beyond doubt original in the story, that the man whose life is saved by rightly answering the question has himself to marry the monstrous woman in return for her prompting him.
Gower relates, Confessio Amantis, Book First, I, 89-104, ed. Pauli, that Florent, nephew of the emperor, as Gawain is of Arthur, slew Branchus, a man of high rank. Branchus's kin refrained from vengeance, out of fear of the emperor; but a shrewd lady, grandmother to Branchus, undertook to compass Florent's death in a way that should bring blame upon nobody. She sent for Florent, and told him that she would engage that he should not be molested by the family of Branchus if he could answer a question she would ask. He was to have a proper allowance of time to find the answer, but he was also to agree that his life should be forfeited unless his answer were right. Florent made oath to this agreement, and sought the opinions of the wisest people upon the subject, but their opinions were in no accord. Considering, therefore, that he must default, he took leave of the emperor, adjuring him to allow no revenge to be taken if he lost his life, and went to meet his fate. But on his way through a forest he saw an ugly old woman, who called to him to stop. This woman told him that he was going to certain death, and asked what he would give her to save him. He said, anything she should ask, and she required of him a promise of marriage. That he would not give. "Ride on to your death, then," said she. Florent began to reflect that the woman was very old, and might be hidden away somewhere till she died, and that there was no other chance of deliverance, and at last pledged his word that he would marry her if it should turn out that his life could be saved only through the answer that she should teach him. She was perfectly willing that he should try all other shifts first, but if they failed, then let him say that women cared most to be sovereign in love. Florent kept back this answer as long as he could. None of his own replies availed, and the lady who presided in judgment at last told him that he could be allowed but one more. Then he gave the old woman's answer, and was discharged, with a curse on her that told.[7]
The old woman was waiting for Florent, and he now had full leisure to inspect all her points; but he was a knight, and would hold his troth. He set her on his horse before him, rode by night and lay close by day, till he came to his castle. There the ladies made an attempt to attire her for the wedding, and she was the fouler for their pains. They were married that night. He turned away from the bride; she prayed him not to be so discourteous. He turned toward her, with a great moral effort, and saw (for the chamber was full of light) a lady of eighteen, of unequalled beauty. As he would have drawn her to him she forbade, and said he must make his choice, to have her such by day or by night. "Choose for us both," was his reply. "Thanks," quoth she, "for since you have made me sovereign, I shall be both night and day as I am now." She explained that, having been daughter of the king of Sicily, her stepmother had forshapen her, the spell to hold till she had won the love and the sovereignty of what knight passed all others in good name.
The scene of Chaucer's tale, The Wife of Bath, returns to Arthur's court. One of the bachelors of the household, when returning from hawking, commits a rape, for which he is condemned to death. But the queen and other ladies intercede for him, and the king leaves his life at the disposal of the queen. The queen, like the shrewd lady in Gower, but with no intent to trapan the young man, says that his life shall depend upon his being able to tell her what women most desire, and gives him a year and a day to seek an answer. He makes extensive inquiries, but there is no region in which two creatures can be found to be of the same mind, and he turns homeward very downcast.
On his way through a wood he saw a company of ladies dancing, and moved towards them, in the hope that he might learn something. But ere he came the dancers had vanished, and all he found was the ugliest woman conceivable sitting on the green. She asked the knight what he wanted, and he told her it was to know what women most desire. "Plight me thy troth to do the next thing I ask of thee, and I will tell thee." He gave his word, and she whispered the secret in his ear.
The court assembled, the queen herself sitting as justice, and the knight was commanded to say what thing women love best. He made his response triumphantly; there was no dissenting voice. But as soon as he was declared to have ransomed his life, up sprang the old woman he had met in the wood. She had taught the man his answer, he had plighted his word to do the first thing she asked of him, and now she asked him to make her his wife. The promise was not disputed, but the poor youth begged her to make some other request; to take all he had in the world, and let him go. She would not yield, and they were married the next day. When they have gone to bed, the old wife, "smiling ever mo," rallies her husband for his indifference, and lectures him for objecting to ugliness, age, and vulgar birth, which things, she says, are a great security for him, and then gives him his election, to have her ugly and old as she is, but true, or young and fair, with the possible contingencies. The knight has the grace to leave the decision to her. "Then I have the sovereignty," she says, "and I will be both fair and good; throw up the curtain and see." Fair and young she was, and they lived to their lives' end in perfect joy.
Chaucer has left out the step-mother and her bewitchment, and saves, humbles, and rewards the young knight by the agency of a good fairy; for the ugly old woman is evidently such by her own will and for her own purposes. She is "smiling ever mo," and has the power, as she says, to set all right whenever she pleases. Her fate is not dependent on the knight's compliance, though his is.
The Wife of Bath's Tale is made into a ballad, or what is called a sonnet, 'Of a Knight and a Fair Virgin,' in The Crown Garland of Golden Roses, compiled by Richard Johnson, not far from 1600: see the Percy Society reprint, edited by W. Chappell, vol. vi of the series, p. 68. Upon Chaucer's story is founded Voltaire's tale, admirable in its way, of Ce qui plaît aux Dames, 1762; of which the author writes, 1765, November 4, that it had had great success at Fontainebleau in the form of a comic opera, entitled La Fée Urgèle.[8] The amusing ballad of The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter has much in common with the Wife of Bath's Tale, and might, if we could trace its pedigree, go back to a common original.[9]
Tales resembling the Marriage of Gawain must have been widely spread during the Middle Ages. The ballad of 'King Henry' has much in common with the one now under consideration, and Norse and Gaelic connections, and is probably much earlier. At present I can add only one parallel out of English, and that from an Icelandic saga.
Grímr was on the verge of marriage with Lopthæna, but a week before the appointed day the bride was gone, and nobody knew what had become of her. Her father had given her a step-mother five years before, and the step-mother had been far from kind; but what then? Grímr was restless and unhappy, and got no tidings. A year of scarcity coming, he left home with two of his people. After an adventure with four trolls, he had a fight with twelve men, in which, though they were all slain, he lost his comrades and was very badly wounded. As he lay on the ground, looking only for death, a woman passed, if so she might be called; for she was not taller than a child of seven years, so stout that Grímr's arms would not go round her, misshapen, bald, black, ugly, and disgusting in every particular. She came up to Grímr, and asked him if he would accept his life from her. "Hardly," said he, "you are so loathsome." But life was precious, and he presently consented. She took him up and ran with him, as if he were a babe, till she came to a large cave; there she set him down, and it seemed to Grímr that she was uglier than before. "Now pay me for saving your life," she said, "and kiss me." "I cannot," said Grímr, "you look so diabolical." "Expect no help, then, from me," said she, "and I see that it will soon be all over with you." "Since it must be, loath as I am," said Grímr, and went and kissed her; she seemed not so bad to kiss as to look at. When night came she made up a bed, and asked Grímr whether he would lie alone or with her. "Alone," he answered. "Then," said she, "I shall take no pains about healing your wounds." Grímr said he would rather lie with her, if he had no other chance, and she bound up his wounds, so that he seemed to feel no more of them. No sooner was Grímr abed than he fell asleep, and when he woke, he saw lying by him almost the fairest woman he had ever laid eyes on, and marvellously like his true-love, Lopthæma. At the bedside he saw lying the troll-casing which she had worn; he jumped up and burned this. The woman was very faint; he sprinkled her with water, and she came to, and said, It is well for both of us; I saved thy life first, and thou hast freed me from bondage. It was indeed Lopthæma, whom the step-mother had transformed into a horrible shape, odious to men and trolls, which she should never come out of till a man should consent to three things, — which no man ever would, — to accept his life at her hands, to kiss her, and to share her bed. Gríms saga loðinkinna, Rafn, Fornaldar Sögur, II, 143-52.
Sir Frederic Madden, in his annotations upon this ballad, 'Syr Gawayne,' p. 359, remarks that Sir Steven, stanza 31, does not occur in the Round Table romances; that Sir Banier, 32, is probably a mistake for Beduer, the king's constable; and that Sir Bore and Sir Garrett, in the same stanza, are Sir Bors de Gauves, brother of Lionel, and Gareth, or Gaheriet, the younger brother of Gawain.
'The Marriage of Sir Gawaine,' as filled out by Percy from the fragments in his manuscript, Reliques, 1765, III, 11, is translated by Bodmer, I, 110; by Bothe, p. 75; by Knortz, Lieder u. Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 135.
Footnotes:
1. Still so called: near Aiketgate, Hesket. Lysons, Cumberland, p. 112
2. 'The Weddynge of Sr Gawen and Dame Ragnell,' Rawlinson Manuscript, C 86, Bodleian Library, the portion containing the poem being paper, and indicating the close of Henry VII's reign. The poem is in six-line stanzas, and, with a leaf that is wanting, would amount to about 925 lines. Madden's Syr Gawayne, lxiv, lxvii, 26, 298a-298y.
3. Sir Gromer occurs in "The Turke and Gowin," Percy Manuscript, Hales and Furnivall, I, 102; Sir Grummore Grummorsum, "a good knight of Scotland," in Morte d'Arthnr; ed. Wright, I, 286 and elsewhere (Madden).
4. See 'King Henry,' the next ballad.
5. The Gaelic tale of 'The Hoodie' offers a similar choice. The hoodie, a species of crow, having married the youngest of a farmer's three daughters, says to her, "Whether wouldst thou rather that I should be a hoodie by day and a man at night, or be a hoodie at night and a man by day?" The woman maintains her proper sovereignty, and does not leave the decision to him: "'I would rather that thou wert a man by day and a hoodie at night,' says she. After this he was a splendid fellow by day, and a hoodie at night." Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, I, 63.
The having one shape by day and another by night is a common feature in popular tales: as, to be a bear by day and a man by night, Hrólfr Kraki's Saga, c. 26, Asbjørnsen og Moe, Norske Folkeeventyr, No 41; a lion by day and a man by night, Grimms, K. u. H. m., No 88; a crab by day and a man by night, B. Schmidt, Griechische Märchen, u.s.w., No 10; a snake by day and a man by night, Karadshitch, Volksmärchen der Serben, Nos 9, 10; a pumpkin by day and a man by night, A. & A. Schott, Walachische Mærchen, No 23; a ring by day, a man by night, Müllenhoff, No 27, p. 466, Karadshitch, No 6, Afanasief, VI, 189. Three princes in 'Kung Lindorm,' Nicolovius, Folklifwet, p. 48 ff, are cranes by day and men by night, the king himself being man by day and worm by night. The double shape is sometimes implied though not mentioned.
6. The brother, Gromer Somer Joure, was a victim of the same necromancy; so the Carl of Carlile, Percy Manuscript, Hales & Furnivall, III, 291.
7. And whan that this matrone herde
The maner how this knight answerde,
She saide, Ha, treson, wo the be!
That hast thus told the privete
Which alle women most desire:
I wolde that thou were a-fire!
So Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell, vv 474 f, and our ballad, stanzas 29, 30.
8. This was a melodrama by Favart, in four acts: reduced in 1821 to one act, at the Gymnase.
9. Chaucer's tale is commonly said to be derived from Gower's, but without sufficient reason. Vv 6507-14, ed. Tyrwhitt, are close to Dame Ragnell, 409-420. Gower may have got his from some Example-book. I have not seen it remarked, and therefore will note, that Example-books may have been known in England as early as 1000, for Aelfric seems to speak slightingly of them in his treatise on the Old Testament. The Proverbs, he says, is a "bigspellbóc, ná swilce gé secgað, ac wísdómes bigspell and warnung wið dysig," etc.
Brief Description by George Lyman Kittredge
We have here again half a ballad, in seven fragments, but the essentials of the story, which is well known from other versions, happen to be preserved, or may he inferred: Arthur, apparently some day after Christmas, had been encountered at Tarn Wadling, in the forest of Inglewood, by a bold baron armed with a club, who offered him the choice of fighting or ransoming himself by coming back on New Year's day and bringing word what women most desire. Arthur puts this question in all quarters, and having collected many answers, in which, possibly, he had little confidence, he rides to keep his day. On the way he meets a frightfully ugly woman; she intimates that she can help him. Arthur promises her Gawain in marriage, if she will, and she imparts to him the right answer. Arthur finds the baron waiting for him at the tarn, and presents first the answers which he had collected and written down. These are contemptuously rejected. Arthur then says that he had met a lady on a moor, who had told him that a woman would have her will. The baron says that the misshapen lady on the moor was his sister, and he will burn her if he can get hold of her. Upon Arthur's return he tells his knights that he has a wife for one of them. When they see the bride they decline the match in vehement terms, all but Gawain, who is somehow led to waive "a little foul sight and misliking." He takes her in all her repulsiveness, and she turns to a beautiful young woman. She asks Gawain whether he will have her in this likeness by night only or only by day. Gawain leaves the choice to her, and this is all that is needed to keep her perpetually beautiful. For a stepmother had bewitched her to go on the wild moor in that fiendly shape until she should meet some knight who would let her have all her will. Her brother, under a like spell, was to challenge men either to fight with him at odds or to answer his hard questions.
These incidents, with the variation that Arthur waits for Gawain's consent before he promises him in marriage, are found in a romance, probably of the fifteenth century, printed in Madden's Syr Gawayne, and somewhat hastily pronounced by the editor to be "unquestionably the original of the mutilated poem in the Percy folio." Gower (Confessio Amantis, Book i, vv. 1407 ff.) and Chaucer (Wife of Bath's Tale) both have this tale, though with a different setting, and with the variation, beyond doubt original in the story, that the man whose life is saved by rightly answering the question has himself to marry the monstrous woman in return for her prompting him. The ballad of 'The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter' (No. 110) has much in common with The Wife of Bath's Tale and should also be compared. The incident of a hag turned into a beautiful woman after a man has bedded with her occurs several times in ancient Irish story, one text being found in the Book of Leinster, a twelfth-century manuscript. For a full discussion of the whole cycle of tales see Maynadier, The Wife of Bath's Tale, its Sources and Analogues, 1901.
Child's Ballad Text A
The Marriage of Sir Gawain
Percy Manuscript, p. 46. Hales & Furnivall, I, 105; Madden's Syr Gawayne, p. 288; Percy's Reliques, ed. 1794, III, 350.
1 Kinge Arthur liues in merry Carleile,
And seemely is to see,
And there he hath with him Queene Genever,
That bride soe bright of blee.
2 And there he hath with [him] Queene Genever,
That bride soe bright in bower,
And all his barons about him stoode,
That were both stiffe and stowre.
3 The king kept a royall Christmasse,
Of mirth and great honor,
And when . . . . . . .
. . . . .
* * * * *
4 'And bring me word what thing it is
That a woman [will] most desire;
This shalbe thy ransome, Arthur,' he sayes,
'For Ile haue noe other hier.'
5 King Arthur then held vp his hand,
According thene as was the law;
He tooke his leaue of the baron there,
And homward can he draw.
6 And when he came to merry Carlile,
To his chamber he is gone,
And ther came to him his cozen Sir Gawaine,
As he did make his mone.
7 And there came to him his cozen Sir Gawaine,
That was a curteous knight;
'Why sigh you soe sore, vnckle Arthur,' he said,
'Or who hath done thee vnright?'
8 'O peace, O peace, thou gentle Gawaine,
That faire may thee beffall!
For if thou knew my sighing soe deepe,
Thou wold not meruaile att all.
9 'Ffor when I came to Tearne Wadling,
A bold barron there I fand,
With a great club vpon his backe,
Standing stiffe and strong.
10 'And he asked me wether I wold fight
Or from him I shold begone,
O[r] else I must him a ransome pay,
And soe depart him from.
11 'To fight with him I saw noe cause;
Methought it was not meet;
For he was stiffe and strong with-all,
His strokes were nothing sweete.
12 'Therefor this is my ransome, Gawaine,
I ought to him to pay;
I must come againe, as I am sworne,
Vpon the New Yeers day;
13 'And I must bring him word what thing it is
. . . . .
. . . . .
. . . . .
* * * * *
14 Then king Arthur drest him for to ryde,
In one soe rich array,
Toward the fore-said Tearne Wadling,
That he might keepe his day.
15 And as he rode over a more,
Hee see a lady where shee sate
Betwixt an oke and a greene hollen;
She was cladd in red scarlett.
16 Then there as shold haue stood her mouth,
Then there was sett her eye;
The other was in her forhead fast,
The way that she might see.
17 Her nose was crooked and turnd outward,
Her mouth stood foule a-wry;
A worse formed lady than shee was,
Neuer man saw with his eye.
18 To halch vpon him, King Arthur,
This lady was full faine,
But King Arthur had forgott his lesson,
What he shold say againe.
19 'What knight art thou,' the lady sayd,
'That will not speak to me?
Of me be thou nothing dismayd,
Tho I be vgly to see.
20 'For I haue halched you curteouslye,
And you will not me againe;
Yett I may happen Sir Knight,' shee said,
'To ease thee of thy paine.'
21 'Giue thou ease me, lady,' he said,
'Or helpe me any thing,
Thou shalt have gentle Gawaine, my cozen,
And marry him with a ring.'
22 'Why, if I help thee not, thou noble King Arthur,
Of thy owne hearts desiringe,
Of gentle Gawaine . . . . .
. . . . .
* * * * *
23 And when he came to the Tearne Wadling,
The baron there cold he finde,
With a great weapon on his backe,
Standing stiffe and stronge.
24 And then he tooke King Arthurs letters in his hands,
And away he cold them fling,
And then he puld out a good browne sword,
And cryd himselfe a king.
25 And he sayd, I have thee and thy land, Arthur,
To doe as it pleaseth me,
For this is not thy ransome sure,
Therfore yeeld thee to me.
26 And then bespoke him noble Arthur,
And bad him hold his hand:
'And giue me leaue to speake my mind
In defence of all my land.'
27 He said, As I came over a more,
I see a lady where shee sate
Betweene an oke and a green hollen;
Shee was clad in red scarlett.
28 And she says a woman will haue her will,
And this is all her cheef desire:
Doe me right, as thou art a baron of sckill,
This is thy ransome and all thy hyer.
29 He sayes, An early vengeance light on her!
She walkes on yonder more;
It was my sister that told thee this,
And she is a misshappen hore.
30 But heer Ile make mine avow to God
To doe her an euill turne,
For an euer I may thate fowle theefe get,
In a fyer I will her burne.
* * * * *
31 Sir Lancelott and Sir Steven bold,
They rode with them that day,
And the formost of the company
There rode the steward Kay.
32 Soe did Sir Banier and Sir Bore,
Sir Garrett with them soe gay,
Soe did Sir Tristeram that gentle knight,
To the forrest fresh and gay.
33 And when he came to the greene forrest,
Vnderneath a greene holly tree,
Their sate that lady in red scarlet
That vnseemly was to see.
34 Sir Kay beheld this ladys face,
And looked vppon her swire;
'Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he sayes,
'Of his kisse he stands in feare.'
35 Sir Kay beheld the lady againe,
And looked vpon her snout;
'Whosoeuer kisses this lady,' he saies,
'Of his kisse he stands in doubt.'
36 'Peace, cozen Kay,' then said Sir Gawaine,
'Amend thee of thy life;
For there is a knight amongst vs all
That must marry her to his wife.'
37 'What! wedd her to wiffe!' then said Sir Kay,
'In the diuells name anon!
Gett me a wiffe where-ere I may,
For I had rather be slaine!'
38 Then some tooke vp their hawkes in hast,
And some tooke vp their hounds,
And some sware thy wold not marry her
For citty nor for towne.
39 And then be-spake him noble King Arthur,
And sware there by this day,
'For a litle foule sight and misliking
. . . . .
* * * * *
40 Then shee said, Choose thee, gentle Gawaine,
Truth as I doe say,
Wether thou wilt haue me in this liknesse
In the night or else in the day.
41 And then bespake him gentle Gawaine,
Was one soe mild of moode,
Sayes, Well I know what I wold say,
God grant it may be good!
42 To haue thee fowle in the night
When I with thee shold play
Yet I had rather, if I might,
Haue thee fowle in the day.
43 'What! when lords goe with ther feires,' shee said,
'Both to the ale and wine,
Alas! then I must hyde my selfe,
I must not goe withinne.'
44 And then bespake him gentle Gawaine,
Said, Lady, that's but skill;
And because thou art my owne lady,
Thou shalt haue all thy will.
45 Then she said, Blesed be thou, gentle Gawain,
This day that I thee see,
For as thou seest me att this time,
From hencforth I wilbe.
46 My father was an old knight,
And yett it chanced soe
That he marryed a younge lady
That brought me to this woe.
47 Shee witched me, being a faire young lady,
To the greene forrest to dwell,
And there I must walke in womans liknesse,
Most like a feend of hell.
48 She witched my brother to a carlish b. . .
. . . . .
. . . . . .
. . . . .
* * * * *
49 . . . . . .
. . . . . .
'That looked soe foule, and that was wont
On the wild more to goe.'
50 'Come kisse her, brother Kay,' then said Sir Gawaine,
'And amend th of thy liffe;
I sweare this is the same lady
That I marryed to my wiffe.'
51 Sir Kay kissed that lady bright,
Standing vpon his feete;
He swore as he was trew knight,
The spice was neuer soe sweete.
52 'Well, cozen Gawaine,' sayes Sir Kay,
'Thy chance is fallen arright,
For thou hast gotten one of the fairest maids
I euer saw with my sight.'
53 'It is my fortune,' said Sir Gawaine;
'For my vnckle Arthurs sake
I am glad as grasse wold be of raine,
Great ioy that I may take.'
54 Sir Gawaine tooke the lady by the one arme,
Sir Kay tooke her by the tother,
They led her straight to King Arthur,
As they were brother and brother.
55 King Arthur welcomed them there all,
And soe did Lady Geneuer his queene,
With all the knights of the Round Table,
Most seemly to be seene.
56 King Arthur beheld that lady faire
That was soe faire and bright,
He thanked Christ in Trinity
For Sir Gawaine that gentle knight.
57 Soe did the knights, both more and lesse,
Reioyced all that day
For the good chance that hapened was
To Sir Gawaine and his lady gay.
End-Notes
13. Qqueene.
33. Half a page gone from the Manuscript, about 9 stanzas; and so after 131, 223, 304, 393, 481.
191. Perhaps sayes.
232. he fimde.
251. Perhaps sayes.
262. Perhaps hands.
271. He altered from the in Manuscript
31. "The 2d Part" is written here in the left margin of the Manuscript Furnivall.
342. her smire.
374. shaine.
412. with one.
431. seires.
442. a skill.
453. thou see
481. Carlist B . . .
& is printed and.
Additions and Corrections
P. 292 b, last paragraph but one. Add: 'Gorvömb,' Arnason, II, 375, Powell. Icelandic Legends, Second Series, 366, 'The Paunch.' Gorvömb, a monstrous creature, in reward for great services, asks to have the king's brother for husband, and in bed turns into a beautiful princess. She had been suffering under the spells of a step-mother.
P. 289. Miss Martha Carey Thomas, in her Dissertation on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, etc., Zürich, 1883, pp. 62-64, has shown that the ugly woman in the English romances is probably derived from 'La damoisele hydeuse,' in the Perceval of Chrestien de Troyes, vv. 5996-6015.
P. 289, II, 502 b. On the loathly damsel in the Perceval of Chrestien de Troyes, see The Academy, October 19, 1889, p. 255. (G. L. K.)
290, note †. One shape by day, another by night: Curtin, Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland, 1890, pp. 51, 68, 69, 71, 136.
P. 293. Mr. Clouston, Originals and Analogues of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, p. 520 cites a pretty story from a modern Turkish author, in which, as so often happens, parts are reversed. A young king of the fairies of a certain realm is cursed by his mother to appear old and ugly until a fair mortal girl shall love him enough to miss his company. This comes to pass after forty years, and the ugly old man becomes a beautiful youth of seventeen. (Phantasms from the Presence of God, written in 1796-97 by 'Ali 'Aziz Efendi, the Cretan.)
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P. 288 ff., II, 289 b, III, 454 a. Mr. Whitley Stokes has pointed out that the incident of a hag turning into a beautiful woman after a man has bedded with her occurs in the Book of Ballymote, an Irish Manuscript of about 1400, and elsewhere and earlier in Irish story, as in the Book of Leinster, a Manuscript of the middle of the twelfth century. The Academy, XLI, 399 (1892). It is singular that the sovereignty in the first tale is the sovereignty of Erin, with which the disenchanted hag rewards her deliverer, and not the sovereignty over woman's will which is the solution of the riddle in the ballad. See also the remarks of Mr. Alfred Nutt in the same volume, p. 425 (and, again, Academy, October 19, 1889, p. 255), who, while denying the necessity for any continental derivation of the hideous woman, suggests that Rosette in Gautier's Conte du Graal, vv. 25380-744, furnishes a more likely origin for her than Chrétien's damoisele, since it does not appear that the latter is under spells, and spells which are loosed by the action of a hero. [See also O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, p. 328 ff.; translation, p. 370 ff. F. N. Robinson.]
289 b. Gromere Gromorson (Grummore Gummursum) and Gromore somyr Ioure, in Malory's Morte Darthur, ed. Sommer, 256, 258, 799.