Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Campfire Story)

It was Christmas at Camelot, and the great hall was full of light and music and feasting. King Arthur and all his knights sat at the Round Table, laughing and singing, when suddenly the doors flew open. The WIND howled in, the candles flickered, and in rode a knight on a huge horse.

He was a giant of a man, taller than any knight in the hall. And he was green. Not wearing green. Green. His skin was green, his long beard was green, his horse was green from mane to hoof. In one hand he held a sprig of holly, and in the other an axe as long as a man, with a blade that shone like ice.

The hall went silent. The GREEN KNIGHT looked around at them all and laughed a booming laugh. 'GREEN KNIGHT! So this is the famous court of King Arthur! I have come for a Christmas game. Is any knight here brave enough to play?'

'What game?' asked Arthur.

'A simple one. Any knight may take my axe and strike me one blow, as hard as he likes. I will not move to stop him. But in one year and one day, he must come and find me at the Green Chapel, and take one blow from me in return.'

Nobody moved. The GREEN KNIGHT laughed again. 'What? Are the Knights of the Round Table afraid of a Christmas game?'

Arthur was rising to take the axe himself when his young nephew stood up. 'My lord,' said Sir Gawain, 'let me do this. If I fall, the kingdom loses little. If you fall, it loses everything.'

Gawain took the axe. The GREEN KNIGHT knelt and bared his neck. Gawain raised the axe high, and SWISH, he struck with all his strength. The green head rolled across the floor.

And then the headless body stood up.

It walked across the hall, picked up its own head by the hair, and climbed back onto its horse. The head opened its eyes and spoke. 'Remember your promise, Sir Gawain. One year and one day. The Green Chapel.' And with one last GREEN KNIGHT, it rode out into the snow.

The year went by too quickly. When autumn came, Gawain put on his armor and rode north alone, through cold forests and over frozen hills, asking everyone he met where the Green Chapel was. Nobody knew. The WIND bit through his armor, and he slept on bare rocks in the snow.

On Christmas Eve, lost and half-frozen, he came to a beautiful castle. The lord of the castle, a big, jolly man with a red beard, welcomed him in. 'The Green Chapel? It's only two miles from here,' he said. 'Stay with us until New Year's Day, then go.'

Then the lord proposed a game of his own. 'Each day I'll go hunting while you rest,' he said. 'In the evening I'll give you whatever I catch, and you'll give me whatever you've gained in the castle that day. Agreed?'

Gawain agreed. Each day the lord came home with a deer, or a boar, or a fox, and each evening Gawain gave him the only thing he had received, a polite kiss on the cheek from the lady of the castle. But on the third day, the lady gave Gawain something else: a green silk sash. 'Wear this,' she whispered, 'and no weapon can hurt you.'

Gawain thought of the axe. He kept the sash. And that evening, for the first time, he did not give the lord everything he had gained that day.

On New Year's morning, Gawain rode to the Green Chapel. It was not a church at all, only a hollow mound in a lonely valley, with a stream running past it. From inside came a sound. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Someone was sharpening an axe.

The GREEN KNIGHT stepped out, head firmly back on his shoulders. 'You came,' he said. 'Good. Kneel.'

Gawain knelt. The axe came down, SWISH, and Gawain flinched. The GREEN KNIGHT stopped the blade a hair from his neck. 'Flinching? Is this the great Gawain?' The axe came down again, SWISH, and Gawain held perfectly still. Again the blade stopped. The third time, SWISH, the axe just nicked the side of his neck, the tiniest scratch.

Gawain leapt up and drew his sword. 'One blow! That was the bargain, and you've had it!'

The GREEN KNIGHT leaned on his axe and laughed, but it was a kind laugh now. And as Gawain watched, the green faded from his skin, and there stood the jolly lord of the castle with the red beard.

'Yes, it was me,' he said. 'Two strokes missed because on the first two days you kept our bargain honestly. The little scratch is for the third day, when you kept the green sash and didn't tell me. You did it because you wanted to live, Gawain, and I don't blame you much for that. But you broke your word, just a little.'

Gawain's face burned with shame. He tore off the green sash and held it out. But the lord shook his head. 'Keep it. Wear it to remind you.'

So Gawain rode home to Camelot wearing the green sash, and told the whole court the story, the brave parts and the shameful part too. And instead of laughing at him, King Arthur and all his knights each tied a green sash on their own arms, in honor of a knight who was brave enough to face the axe, and honest enough to admit his mistake.

Storyteller tips: slow way down for the headless knight standing up, and whisper the scrape, scrape, scrape of the axe being sharpened at the Green Chapel.

Talk it over afterward: Gawain was brave, but he still made a mistake. What did he do afterward that was just as brave as facing the axe?