Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

On New Year’s Day a towering green stranger rides into King Arthur’s hall and offers a strange bargain: any knight may strike him one blow, so long as he take the same blow in return a year later. Gawain accepts and beheads him, only to watch the Green Knight calmly lift his own head and ride away. The rest of this late medieval poem follows Gawain’s journey to keep his word, and the subtler test he meets as a guest, when his host’s wife tries daily to tempt him from his honour. Written by an unknown English poet near the end of the fourteenth century, it remains one of the finest Arthurian romances. This edition presents S. O. Andrew’s verse translation. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.