Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Classical Stories · No. 79 — A beheading game, a year to keep the promise, and a knight who almost does.
- Classical Stories
- 50 min
- Ages 8–13
- 7 chapters
About this audiobook
At Camelot's New Year feast, a huge Green Knight rides in and dares any knight to strike him one axe-blow, on condition that the striker seek him out in a year and a day to receive one in return. Gawain takes up the challenge and beheads him — whereupon the Green Knight calmly picks up his own head, repeats the appointment, and rides out. A year later Gawain sets off to keep his terrible bargain. He shelters at a castle whose lord proposes a merry game: each day the lord will give Gawain whatever he catches hunting, if Gawain gives him whatever he gains in the castle. For three days the lord's wife tests Gawain with kisses he honestly hands over — but on the last day she gives him a green sash said to protect his life, and this one thing, out of fear, he keeps back. At the Green Chapel the axe falls three times: two feints, and a third that only nicks him — for the Green Knight was the lord all along, and the nick is for the one small thing Gawain hid, out of the love of life.
Why it's worth a listen
A giant knight, green from head to horse, rides into King Arthur's Christmas feast and offers a game: strike me one blow with my own axe, and in a year seek me out to take the same in return. Young Sir Gawain accepts — and spends the year keeping a promise that walks him toward his own death, tested along the way by a courtesy game he doesn't realize is the real trial. The most human of the Arthurian tales, about honesty, courage, and being gently, forgivably imperfect.
A question to keep
When keeping your word means walking toward your own doom, does courage mean going anyway — and is it failure to also want to live?
Chapters
- The Feast of the Holly Branch
- The Head in the Hall
- The Ride into the North
- The Game of Hunts and Gifts
- The Green Sash and the Cold Morning
- The Three Strokes
- A Question to Keep