Doon’s one eye glinted. He reached cautious, gloved fingers toward the medallion.
“Take it, Doon. So, you will lighten my soul of one sin.”
Slowly, Doon’s fingers pinched the dangling chain. Gawain let go. Doon said, “Thanks, Sir.”
Gawain nodded and laced his helm on again. “Take it with my good wishes. Now show me where this trail begins.”
Doon pulled the pony back from the edge. “I’ll tell them you went down there, Sir.”
“Ha! Man, you’ll tell them but the truth.”
“There, Sir.” Doon pointed to a milder, ridged edge a bit to the right. “Watch for rolled stones and such. The Gods—God bless you, Sir.”
Doon wheeled the pony and trotted away. Within a few steps he urged it to a slow canter.
Green chapel? no chapel here, Sir.
No building of any sort…
Gawain rode slowly along the narrow, iced stream, looking about at bank and bush, and great nobbled, horned rocks on both sides. Snow fell thinner, seldomer.
Unless that be a building, Sir. That…long mound under the cliff.
Gawain drew rein. That? That’s a hill. All frozen weeds and grass.
Our fathers used to build such mounds to bury their dead in.
Ah. True. Mother showed me one such…
And did not Lord Bright tell us the Green Chapel was one such?
Let us see.
Gawain dismounted and tied nervous Gringolet to a strong-looking bare bush. He walked up to the mound, which stood only twice his own height. One end consisted simply of cliff. The mound reached out to the stream. Ice sealed a rotten wooden door.
“God save!” Gawain uttered aloud. “Can this be the Green Chapel? Here might the devil tell his matins, about midnight!”
He splashed into the stream and around the mound’s end. On this side the mound was badly eroded, and he could see through fallen, crumbled earth to great rocks underneath.
Those rocks are laid by man, one upon another. Truly, this mound was built, long ago.
Ice crept from Gawain’s innards through his muscles. This place is Fey! Holy, or unholy. Mother would know. This is the ugliest, most desolate chapel I ever came to; and now I fear a fiend must have drawn me here. Truly, the Green Knight must be the devil himself if he dwells here!
Gawain startled. Had he long, leafy ears like the head on the medallion, they would have stretched and trembled open. What is that sound?
Came from within, Sir.
What clatters there?
Sounds like ax on grindstone, Sir.
Angel Michael! It must be the Green Knight, summoning me.
Gawain gave himself no time more to think. He stiffened spine, breathed cold air deep into frozen lungs. He cried aloud, “I am Sir Gawain of the Round Table, King’s Companion, here to keep my given word. If any one awaits me here let him now come forth. With speed. Now or never.” The bold words burst from him in mists and coiled against the mound.
The ringing stopped, Sir. It must have heard you…
“Wait!” cried a great voice above. On the chapel roof, under sober gray sky, stood the giant Green Knight, green ax in hand. “Wait a moment, and you shall speedily get from me what I once got from you.”
Sir Green lashed his ax once about, turned and climbed down out of sight on the chapel’s far side.
He can’t run well with that heavy ax. We could reach Gringolet—
Sir Green splashed around the front end of the chapel where the ford lapped high. On land again, he used his ax as a walking stick. Stalking beside the swinging blade, he came up to Gawain.
“Now, good Sir,” he said abruptly, “you are welcome here at my place.” He waved the ax briefly around at green-grown chapel, cold-lapping water, gray sky. “You know well the covenant we keep here. A year ago you took from me, and now this New Year I take from you.
“Here we are alone together; here is none to help or hinder. Unhelm you, Sir, and take your pay! And say you no more than I said when you whipped off my head at one blow.”
A statue of ice, Gawain said calmly, “Take your stroke, Sir. I shall say nothing.”
Sir! Oh, Sir!
Gawain laid helm and shield aside on stony ground. He bowed down and stretched his neck as far as he could.
Sir, why stretch so very far…
He stretched farther.
Beside him he saw green boots take a striking stance. He saw the green ax swing up past his face. The boots shifted wide for better balance. Unlooked-for sunshine brightened the stones and Gawain’s helm and shield. Unlooked-for sunshine showed him the shadow of the ax poised on high, and swooping down.
Gawain flinched. Only a little he shrank neck back toward shoulders. The ax crashed to earth under his nose.
“Ha!” cried the great voice above. “You are not the Gawain of great valor I have heard sung! That knight would never flinch! Myself, I never flinched when you lifted the ax in Arthur’s house. That must make me the better man!”
Gawain gasped, “Make haste, Man. Strike your blow. I’ll stand still. Though when my head falls I cannot pick it up again.”
Once more he stretched out his neck.
Once more the green boots spread and planted themselves. Once more the ax-shadow rose, poised, and fell.
Halfway. The ax stopped in midair.
“So,” Sir Green remarked, “now you’ve really got your courage up, I pay you back.”
Eyes to ground, Gawain saw red. “Hurry it up, boaster! You talk too much.” Redly he saw the boots grip ground, ax shadow rise into gray shadow as brief sunlight faded.
Redly he saw the green ax blade plant itself under his nose.
Blood redder than anger spurted upon stone.
Sir! He grazed your neck!
Gawain leaped. A spear’s length away he straightened, whirled on Sir Green, whipped out his sword.
“Hit me again, Sir, I’ll hit you back! Be you mighty sure of that. The covenant is finished, complete, accomplished. You have had your free stroke.” Warm blood leaked down his neck.
Sir Green leaned on his ax. “Be you not so fierce,” he rumbled calmly. “No one has insulted or misused you. I but followed our covenant, which is now finished.”
Sir, we’re alive!
Gawain stood panting. Redness lifted slowly from his sight so that he saw the Green Knight green, the sky behind him gray and clearing.
“But we had another covenant,” said Sir Green.
“Eh? What mean you?”
“You promised to give me whatever you took in my house.”
“Your house…”
“You kissed my wife. You gave me the kisses, as promised. For those kisses I here feinted you two harmless blows. But the third night you failed, Sir. For I know you wear my wife’s magic girdle that she gave you, which you took in my house, and said nothing of it.”
Saint Michael!
“I tested you, Sir Gawain. I thought to myself, ‘Gawain is as much above other knights as a pearl is above peas.’ But I found you a little wanting. Because you loved your life, which the girdle might save, you broke covenant with me. Therefore, I gave you that little tap that now bleeds.”
Gawain grew hot. From his heart, wounded as by a sword thrust, heat flooded up neck and face.
Give the cursed thing back!
But how to get at it, under everything else? “Take the foul, evil thing back, Lord Bright!” Gloved hands strove to reach it under cuirass and tunic. “I wish I had never seen it! For love of life I forsook my calling, my knighthood, my Honor! I am faulty, treacherous, untrue…”
“Keep the girdle, Gawain. Let it remind you.”
“Of my falsehood, treachery—”
“Of your imperfection. Only God is perfect.”
“Ah. You are right.”
“Overweening pride is a sin. Not so?”
“So the priests say.”
“Go now, and sin no more. As Merlin would sing.”
Gawain longed to go, t
o be away from Sir Green/Lord Bright and his grisly chapel. He longed to be alone and able to weep out shock and terror, shame and relief.
He stepped forward to retrieve helm and shield from stones now sun-bright again. But paused. “Lord Bright. Why have you tested me thus?”
“Aha. Maybe you know this song.” Lord Bright raised his ringing voice and sang till the cliffs echoed.
“You northern knave, what do you here?
Ride your rough pony not so near.
We guard King Arthur’s portal, here.
Stand! Or you’ll maybe stop a spear.”
Softly, Gawain groaned.
Sir, if you sinned against Honor with Lord Bright, you sinned far worse, earlier, against our dear Lady Green.
Lord Bright broke off the song. “I see you’ve heard it. That song tells of a May King who escaped his doom. He cheated the Goddess and the crops, and a hungry tribe paid his price. You know that man.”
“Aye. Aye.”
“Then said the Goddess, ‘Bring me his head! Or his pride.’ ”
Mary shield!
“Need you hear more, Sir Gawain of the Round Table?”
“Nay. I think not.”
“Take you the green girdle to remind you for always. I take your pride to the Goddess.”
The Green Knight’s words sliced through Gawain’s mind as cleanly as an ax. As through a wide-opened skull he saw a new world around him, a world of which he might have heard but had never taken seriously. Like heaven, or Fairyland, a country spread, newly visible.
Honor was not the One Way. Chivalry was not the One Pearl of Price. Lady Green and her tribe and Gods followed another Way, equal even with Honor. Northern savages, pagans, women, lowly knaves, followed Ways Gawain had never considered.
He had been half-blind, like Doon One-Eye.
Now he saw clearly with both eyes.
He bent, picked up and donned his helmet, hoisted shield over back. The Green Knight rumbled, “Sir Gawain. Good-bye.”
Sunshine swept over the barren valley. Gawain bowed his head to Lord Bright. He turned and strode toward tethered Gringolet, who tossed head and neighed greeting. Gawain took the rein and mounted. He glanced back toward the Green Chapel.
The Green Knight had vanished.
Gawain turned Gringolet in a wide circle around stones. They headed back toward the upward “trail.” Fast-fading sunlight glinted on whiteness under the cliff.
There stood a white fallow doe. Slender legs trembled, uncertain whether to run; but the doe stood still under the child’s sheltering arm.
Lady Green’s strange, almost disturbing little girl lifted a lock of dark hair back over her shoulder. Her solemn gaze followed Gawain as he rode slowly by. Not long ago, he might have passed her without a sign of recognition. But now he rode in a new landscape.
Sun faded. Snow spit from heaven. Sun chased snow. Gawain lifted a gloved hand in greeting as he rode away.
“You have wept.”
“I never weep.”
“Your eyes say different.”
“I did not weep when Granny died. I did not weep to be born!”
“Just now, you wept for him.”
“Show me his head.”
“Love, look not so savage! You frighten me.”
“Is his head in your sack?”
“I’ll show you. Wait while I dump out…”
“Oh. Your costume.”
“Costumes. Green’s mask…Bright’s beard…Bright’s hair…I am a man of many masks, many parts. And every part I play, every mask I wear, that I become.”
“Well I know your magic.”
“As true a magic as druid ever worked in the world! You worked your own share of it, and excellent well! You even changed your voice.”
“Bright’s gloves were my idea, remember…”
“Oh, aye! So he never saw the true size of my hands…”
“I did what I had to do…as almost always I have done what I had to do…”
“Nay. No more tears, Love. Look at me. Can you see me?”
“Like a Fairy seen through rain.”
“Here. Dry your eyes on Sir Green’s sleeve. See me now?”
“Like a God seen in dream.”
“I am neither Fairy nor God. I am Druid Merry, chief of the Square Table—that same Square Table that the High King now trusts to guard the north.
“I am Knight of the Green Chapel, cruel Fey. Rider of the great green charger. Bearer of the great green ax.
“I spoke with mysterious Merlin and his mysterious daughter. I promised them our Square Table alliance. They helped me with their cunning arts: music and mystic smoke.
“I spoke to crowned King Arthur on his dais, and all his proud Round Table. When that one sliced off my head I reeled; but I picked up my head and spoke through it, and all their gathering listened.
“Nay, Dear, hold you still. Hear me out.
“I am Lord Bright, cheery, generous host. I order—Food! Fire! To horse!—and all obey. To the lonely, lost wanderer I give shelter, bed, clothing, dinner. And I play him like a fish on my line. For I do love to laugh, Lady. As you know.
“Lean close, now. For this I must whisper.
“I am the Green Man.
Who is the Tree,
That shades and shelters
Mortality.”
“Look at me, Dear. I am Merry, Genius Druid, father of your so talented daughter. I am the man for you.”
“Show me now…let me see…his…head.”
“Where do I carry it, on my belt? Naught there. In my sack? Empty.”
“You…you did not bring me his head?”
“I did not. What! More tears? You will drown yourself!”
“He rode away?”
“Safe and whole, to his own world. But it may look different to him now.”
“My magic girdle went away with him?”
“To bind up the wounds of his pride. By all Gods, dry your eyes!”
“And the medallion I gave you?”
“Naturally, I expected to bring it back with his head. Since I did not, it’s gone. May it serve him well.”
“I don’t deserve you!”
“What?”
“I should have demanded his head and nothing else! But I saw the Demon.”
“At last!”
“It promised me prophecy. Healing. More power than Merlin’s daughter has. More power than Ynis will have!”
“Holy Gods! It never meant to keep that promise.”
“But I saw the horror of it…I drove it away. It left me alone with my heart. And now I don’t deserve you.”
“Dear. Your own good heart is all I want.”
“Can I believe that?”
“I told you I would never wed that Demon! Had you demanded his head and nothing else, I could not love you.”
“I did not know I took that chance! Would you have brought me my demand, even without love?”
“Aye. I would have. And then, you would not have loved me.”
“That one who rode away with my girdle…”
“You can say his name.”
“Gawain. I swear, he will never come back. Not even in my dreams.”
“Kiss me.”
“…Like that?”
“Did you kiss him like that?”
“When I was Lady Bright.”
“I love your laugh, Dear. Now kiss me the way you kissed him when you were Lady Green. Ah, yes. Like that.
“My Dear, shall we two now be truly wed? Kiss me to say, Aye….
“Aha. Shall we two birth us a son, a seed in the dark, to grow like a green tree through wind and rain and sun to the stars?
“Aha. Pearl of Price! And shall we two lead the dance for a while together, all clad in green?”
“Aaaah. Goddess!”
About the Author
Anne Eliot Crompton grew up in a college town in the 1940s, a time when women’s roles in myth were less acknowledged than today. When she married and moved to t
he country to raise children and animals, she realized how much heavy lifting had been done by women throughout human history. Part of her life’s work has been to shine light on their immense contribution to the human story. Having come full circle, she now lives in a college town in Vermont.
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