What Kind of Knight is This Green Guy?

I can speculate many a reason why Sir Gawain chooses to accept the challenge presented to Arthur’s court by the Green Knight. He is the youngest of Arthur’s knights and he is Arthur’s nephew, so he must feel some sort of obligation to demonstrate his chivalry. In addition, he is rational; with one free strike, he can kill his opponent, thus one free strike can not possibly be returned. With this rationality, Sir Gawain begins to exhibit a common “fault” in medieval knights:

keeping ones word is held with great respect and honor, and with no nods to suspicion, it is expected that others will do the same.

Initially, however, I could not speculate any reason why the Green Knight chooses to gallop in on New Year’s Day, wait for a knight specifically like Sir Gawain to come forward, and deliberately trick him into waiting a year for his death. I was left thinking, what kind of knight is this green guy and what is his purpose? To me, it seemed that, time and time again, bad people appear in medieval literaure with bad intentions and manage to use the good intentions of respectable and honorable people against them for no reason other than the need for a plot device. Stay tuned - this is not the case for the Green Knight.

As I previously mentioned, knights such as Sir Gawain like to keep their word and expect others to do the same without suspicion. Under that principle and that principle only, Sir Gawain must be failing at knighthood when he goes against his promise to exchange his daily gain for Bertilak’s daily kill; he secretly withholds a girdle, given to him by Bertilak's apparently seductive wife, that he thinks will save him from physical harm. Sir Gawain therefore keeps his word to the seemingly random Green Knight who he believes will kill him, but he goes against his word to Bertilak when he discovers a loop hole. WHY? (Did I mention the damn girdle is green like the Green Knight who fooled him?)

In the end, we learn that the Green Knight and Bertilak are the same person, and his purpose was to test Arthur's knights, but what exactly was he testing? Well, it was not their levels of trust versus suspicion, nor was it whether or not they would keep their word by showing up a year later for inevitable death. Instead, he used those knightly characteristics as tools for the deceit he needed to test integrity - the ability to hold onto morals when no one except oneself would know otherwise. If one of Arthur's knights had integrity, he would have handed over the life-saving girdle to Bertilak, thus deserving true respect and honor. Instead of a plot device, the Green Knight has a legitimate purpose! However, he is frankly odd for using deceit the way he did...

 I give thanks to a story that might teach men to have some integrity. To the elderly lady who figured frightening Guinevere to death would make for bravura laughs, I also give thanks.

Sincerely speaking,

Lady of the Lake

Lacy, Norris J., and James J. Wilhelm. The Romance of Arthur: An Anthology of Medieval Texts in Translation. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.