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| Tina, Claire, Joseph, Maria & Honey |
One of the most important things to work in group is solidarity, tolerance and effort. If you talk about the Knights of the Round Table, these values are more important and you can also add honour and loyalty. Today, dozens of people have worked together to prepare a wonderful party to celebrate Maria's 90th anniversary and they have expressed their loyalty to Maria with this event and have honoured her for her unfinished effort to help thousands of people during the last decades.
King Arthur said Long live Camelot!. We say, Long live Maria!
During the trip from Barcelona to Maria's home, The Grandma has been reading about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the most popular stories of the Arthurian Cycle. She has also studied a new lesson of her Intermediate Language Practice manual (Chapter 45).
More information: Pronouns I, II, III, IV & V
He is one of a select number of Round Table members to be referred to as one of the greatest knights, most notably in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. He is almost always portrayed as the son of Arthur's sister Morgause or Anna and King Lot of Orkney and Lothian, and his brothers are Agravain, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred. He was well known to be the most trustworthy friend of Sir Lancelot.
More information: King Arthur's Knights
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| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
Gawain is often portrayed as a formidable, courteous, and also a compassionate warrior, fiercely loyal to his king and family. He is a friend to young knights, a defender of the poor, and as the Maidens' Knight, a defender of women as well.
In some works, his strength waxes and wanes with the sun; in the most common form of this motif, his might triples by noon, but fades as the sun sets. His knowledge of herbs makes him a great healer, and he is credited with at least three children: Florence, Lovell, and Gingalain, the last of which is also called Libeaus Desconus or Le Bel Inconnu.
Gawain appears in English, French and Celtic literature. Gawain is known by different names and variants in different languages. The character corresponds to the Welsh Gwalchmei ap Gwyar, and is known in Latin as Walwen, Gualguanus and Waluanusin, French as Gauvain; and in English as Gawain. The later forms are generally assumed to derive from the Welsh Gwalchmei. The element Gwalch means hawk, and is a typical epithet in medieval Welsh poetry. The meaning of mei is uncertain.
In some works, his strength waxes and wanes with the sun; in the most common form of this motif, his might triples by noon, but fades as the sun sets. His knowledge of herbs makes him a great healer, and he is credited with at least three children: Florence, Lovell, and Gingalain, the last of which is also called Libeaus Desconus or Le Bel Inconnu.
Gawain appears in English, French and Celtic literature. Gawain is known by different names and variants in different languages. The character corresponds to the Welsh Gwalchmei ap Gwyar, and is known in Latin as Walwen, Gualguanus and Waluanusin, French as Gauvain; and in English as Gawain. The later forms are generally assumed to derive from the Welsh Gwalchmei. The element Gwalch means hawk, and is a typical epithet in medieval Welsh poetry. The meaning of mei is uncertain.
More information: Britannica
Gwalchmei was a traditional hero of Welsh legend whose popularity greatly increased after foreign versions, particularly those derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, became known in Wales. The early romance Culhwch and Olwen written in the 11th century and eventually associated with the Mabinogion, ascribes to Gwalchmei the same relationship with Arthur that Gawain is later given: he is Arthur's sister's son and one of his leading warriors.
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| Lady Bertilak Tries to Seduce Sir Gawain |
Unlike the other helpers he takes no further part in the action, suggesting he was added to the romance later, likely under the influence of the Welsh versions of Geoffrey's Historia.
Still, Gwalchmei was clearly a traditional figure; other early references to him include the Welsh Triads. The Gwyar, meaning gore or spilled blood in Gwalchmei ap Gwyar is likely the name of Gwalchmei's mother, rather than his father as is the standard in the Welsh Triads. Matronyms were sometimes used in Wales, as in the case of Math fab Mathonwy and Gwydion fab Dôn, and were also fairly common in early Ireland.
A few references to Gawain appear outside Wales in the first half of the 12th century; for instance in his Gesta Regum Anglorum of around 1125, William of Malmesbury writes that Walwen's grave had been uncovered in Pembrokeshire during the reign of William the Conqueror; William recounts that Arthur's formidable nephew had been driven from his kingdom by Hengest's brother, though he continued to harry his enemies severely.
However, it was Geoffrey of Monmouth's version of Gawain in the Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136, that brought the character to a wider audience. As in the Welsh tradition, Geoffrey's Gualguanus is the son of Arthur's sister, here named Anna, and her husband is Lot, the prince of Lothian and one of Arthur's key supporters. Gualguanus is depicted as a superior warrior and potential heir to the throne until he is tragically struck down by his traitorous brother Modred's forces.
However, it was Geoffrey of Monmouth's version of Gawain in the Historia Regum Britanniae, written around 1136, that brought the character to a wider audience. As in the Welsh tradition, Geoffrey's Gualguanus is the son of Arthur's sister, here named Anna, and her husband is Lot, the prince of Lothian and one of Arthur's key supporters. Gualguanus is depicted as a superior warrior and potential heir to the throne until he is tragically struck down by his traitorous brother Modred's forces.
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| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
Several later works expand on Geoffrey's mention of Gawain's boyhood spent in Rome, the most important of which is the anonymous Medieval Latin romance The Rise of Gawain, Nephew of Arthur, which describes his birth, boyhood and early adventures leading up to his knighting by his uncle.
Beginning with the five works of Chrétien de Troyes, Gawain became a very popular figure in French chivalric romances in the later 12th century. Chrétien uses Gawain as a major character and establishes some characteristics that pervade later depictions, including his unparalleled courteousness and his way with women. His romances set the pattern often followed in later works in which Gawain serves as an ally to the protagonist and a model of knighthood to whom others are compared.
More information: Story Nori I & II
However, in Chrétien's later romances, especially Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart and Perceval, the Story of the Grail, the title heroes prove morally superior to Gawain, who follows the rules of courtliness to the letter rather than the spirit.
An influx of romances written in French appeared in Chretien's wake, and in these Gawain was characterized variously. In many of these Gawain romances, such as Le Chevalier à l'épée and La Vengeance Raguidel, he is the hero; in others, he aids the hero; sometimes he is the subject of burlesque humor. In the many variants of the Bel Inconnu or Fair Unknown story, he is the father of the hero.
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| Sir Gawain and Lady Bertilak |
Later, when his brothers Agravain and Mordred plot to destroy Lancelot and Guinevere by exposing their love affair, Gawain tries to stop them. When Guinevere is sentenced to burn at the stake and Arthur deploys his best knights to guard the execution, Gawain nobly refuses to take part in the deed even though his brothers will be there. But when Lancelot returns to rescue Guinevere, a battle between Lancelot's and Arthur's knights ensues and Gawain's brothers, except for Mordred, are killed.
More information: The University of Chicago Press Journals
This turns his friendship with Lancelot into hatred, and his desire for vengeance causes him to draw Arthur into a war with Lancelot in France. In the king's absence, Mordred usurps the throne, and the Britons must return to save Britain. Gawain is writes to Lancelot apologizing for his actions and asking for him to come to Britain to help defeat Mordred and join forces with Arthur to save Camelot.
For the English and Scots, Gawain remained a respectable and heroic figure. He is the subject of several romances and lyrics in the dialects of those countries. He is the hero of one of the greatest works of Middle English literature, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where he is portrayed as an excellent, but human, knight.
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| Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
Other important English Gawain romances include The Awntyrs off Arthure, The Adventures of Arthur, and The Avowyng of Arthur.
These glowing portraits of Gawain all but ended with Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, which is based mainly, but not exclusively, on French works from the Vulgate and Post-Vulgate Cycles. Here Gawain partly retains the negative characteristics attributed to him by the later French, and partly retains his earlier positive representations, creating a character seen by some as inconsistent, and by others as a believably flawed hero.
Gawain is cited in Robert Laneham's letter describing the entertainments at Kenilworth in 1575, and the recopying of earlier works such as The Greene Knight suggests that a popular tradition of Gawain continued.
Now I feel in my five wits it is the fiend
that has made this bargain with me, to destroy me here.
Sir Gawain
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