58 Facts About Gawain

Gawain, known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend, in which he is King Arthur's nephew and a Knight of the Round Table.

The prototype of Gawain is mentioned under the name Gwalchmei in the earliest Welsh sources.

Gawain has subsequently appeared in many Arthurian tales in Welsh, Latin, French, English, Scottish, Dutch, German, Spanish, and Italian, notably as the protagonist of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

However, his familial relations and upbringing are recorded differently in various accounts, although they often involve a story of Gawain unknowingly being raised in foster care in Rome before returning to Britain to reunite happily with his biological relatives.

However, Gawain's glowing portrayal diminishes in the Vulgate Cycle, which favours Lancelot and, especially, Galahad.

Gawain's character turns markedly ignoble in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and even outright villainous in the Prose Tristan, resulting in his conflicting characterization in Le Morte d'Arthur.

Two important plotlines shed light on Gawain's redefined characterization: his being a leader in the family blood feud against the clan of King Pellinore and his initially close friendship with another great knight, Sir Lancelot, which becomes a bitter rivalry when he seeks vengeance for the death of his brothers.

Gawain is known by different names and variants in different languages.

Gawain's precursor, Gwalchmei son of Gwyar, was a hero of Welsh mythology and clearly a major figure of the now largely lost oral tradition.

Gawain's father is named as Emyr Llydaw, that is Budic II of Brittany.

An early Welsh romance Culhwch and Olwen, composed 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 the son of Arthur's sister and one of his leading warriors.

Gawain appears in Peredur fab Efrawg, part of the Mabinogion, where he aids the hero Peredur in the final battle against the nine witches of Caer Loyw.

Geoffrey mentions that Gawain was twelve years old at the time when King Lot and Arthur began a war with Norway, and that he had previously served Pope Sulpicius in Rome.

Gawain later plays a major role as one of the leaders in Arthur's victorious war against the Romans, having personally started this great conflict by killing the Roman envoy Caius who had insulted him and Arthur.

Geoffrey's Gawain is depicted as a supreme warrior and potential heir to the throne until he is tragically struck down by the forces of his traitorous brother Mordred at Richborough, during an attempted sea landing that turned into a disaster.

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 De Ortu Waluuanii Nepotis Arturi, which describes his birth, boyhood, and early adventures leading up to his knighting by his uncle.

Gawain's 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.

However, in Chretien's later romances, especially Lancelot, le Chevalier de la Charrette and Perceval ou le Conte du Graal, the eponymous heroes Lancelot and Percival prove morally superior to Gawain, who follows the rules of courtliness to the letter rather than the spirit.

Gawain is prominent in the continuations of Perceval, in particular the First Continuation and Perlesvaus.

The Middle High German romance Diu Crone by Heinrich von dem Turlin, in which Gawain is the protagonist who achieves the Grail and heals the Fisher King, features a minor character of "the other Gawain": his lookalike, Aamanz.

Gawain is notably the hero of one of the greatest works of Middle English literature, the alliterative poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where he is portrayed as an excellent, but human, knight.

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 English tradition of Gawain continued.

Later, when his brothers Mordred and Agravain plot to destroy Lancelot and Queen 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.

Meanwhile, Gawain is mortally wounded by Lancelot himself after a long duel.

Gawain is the first to declare that he "shall laboure in the Queste of the Sankgreall" but really embarks on the Grail quest in order to gain more magical meals and drinks from it rather than from a religious zeal or to save the Fisher King's kingdom.

Gawain's rage is so great that he refuses to cease fighting even after the Pope steps in and issues a bull to end the violence between Arthur's and Lancelot's factions.

The mortally injured Gawain later writes to Lancelot, repenting of his bitterness, asking for his help against Mordred, and for forgiveness for splitting the Round Table.

Sometime after Gawain is ten years of age, his foster-father vows to make a pilgrimage to Rome if he recovers from his severe illness.

In De Ortu Waluuani, the young Gawain, trained as a Roman cavalry officer, undertakes a duel to determine whether Rome or Persia should possess Jerusalem.

Gawain is then sent to King Arthur with the proof of his birth.

Gawain then arrives at Arthur's court, but the king rejects him despite learning of the knight being his nephew.

Arthur and his forces go to fight the pagan army but lose, yet Gawain single-handedly succeeds and returns with the Lady and with the pagan king's head.

Gawain becomes the castle's lord, and it would be likely that he would unknowingly marry either his mother or his sister, but Gawain discovers who the women are.

Later romances abandon the motif of Gawain being brought up, unknown, in Rome.

In many works outside the Lancelot-Grail-derived tradition in which Gawain has only his-familiar four brothers, Gawain has sisters in different settings.

In some versions of the legend, Gawain would have been the true and rightful heir to the throne of Camelot, after the reign of King Arthur.

The Vulgate Mort Artu says Gawain had been baptised as an infant by a miracle-working holy man, named Gawain, who named the boy after himself, and who announced the following day that every day at noon, at the hour of the baptism, his power and strength would increase.

The Post-Vulgate narration tells how, in great part due to his supernatural strength, there have been only six knights whom Gawain failed to defeat in a sword fight: Lancelot, Hector, Bors, his own brother Gaheris, Tristan, and Morholt.

In many romances, Gawain is depicted as a model for chivalric attributes.

Gawain is responsible for the deaths of more of his fellow Round Table companions, including the young King Bagdemagus of Gorre, whom he accidentally kills during a tournament.

The Vulgate Mort Artu even says Gawain had killed some of his fellow Knights of the Round Table in the grand quest for the Grail, which he turned out to be unworthy to achieve.

When Gawain does reach the Grail Castle, he is unable to restore the Grail Sword, unlike his role in Perceval, and is actually more interested in the Grail Maiden than in the holy relic, failing to even spot it there.

Hartmann von Aue's Erec is the first to mention Gawain's offspring, listing one "Henec the Skillful, son of Gawain", among the Knights of the Round Table.

Gawain might be the same as the unnamed daughter of King Tradelmant of North Wales, a hitherto virgin who becomes pregnant by Gawain out of wedlock in the Prose Lancelot.

Since Gawain is known in multiple tales as the "Knight of Maidens", his name is thus attached to no woman in particular.

Nevertheless, Gawain has had wives in the course of Arthurian literature, albeit he is always introduced as yet unmarried at the beginning of any such story.

In Parzival, Gawain marries Orguelleuse, the widow of the Duke of Logres.

In Diu Crone, Gawain marries Amurfina, a niece of Arthur's stepfather who wins Gawain from her own younger sister Sgoidamur through the use of a magic bridle and a love potion.

Repeatedly, Gawain is often intimately associated with a supernatural female figure from the Otherworld or the Fairyland.

The Italian romance La Pulzella Gaia has Gawain fight and defeat a giant serpent that turns out to be just a form of fairy princess, the daughter of Morgan le Fay who then becomes his secret lover; their relationship, once revealed, makes both of them into enemies of Guinevere, Arthur, and Morgan all at once.

Arcade is renamed as Lady Ettarde in Malory's version with no happy end for her; his Le Morte d'Arthur mentions Gawain having once been in the power of the lustful witch Hellawes.

In contrast, Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex portrays Gawain as open-minded and introspective about his flaws, qualities that make him the Round Table's greatest knight.

Gawain is a major character in The Squire's Tales series by Gerald Morris, in which he is portrayed as a skilled knight, immensely loyal to Arthur, and as intelligent, kind-hearted, and occasionally sarcastic.

An aged Gawain is one of the central characters in Kazuo Ishiguro's novel The Buried Giant.

Gawain appears as a supporting character in films such as Knights of the Round Table and Excalibur, all of which draw on elements of Gawain's traditional characterizations.

Gawain plays his traditional part in the 1963 film Sword of Lancelot, seeking revenge when Lancelot kills his unarmed brother Gareth, but ultimately coming to Lancelot's aid when he uncovers Mordred's responsibility.

Gawain furthermore appeared in a number of video games, including as the protagonist of Chronicles of the Sword.