WHO IS THE GREEN KNIGHT?

 

[The following is a selection from my book THE MYSTERIES OF AVALON.]

Another Arthurian site has always intrigued me; that of the Green Chapel in the 14th century epic poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. While it is not immediately apparent that the Green Chapel has anything to do with Merlin, we will see that it actually belongs to the great enchanter.

The poem leaves no doubt as to what the Green Chapel really is:

"... a hillock of sorts, A smooth-surfaced barrow on a slope beside a stream... All hollow it was within, only an old cavern..." (Lines 2171-82)

This chambered barrow is ‘hardly two miles’ from the castle of the Green Knight, who calls himself Bertilak of Hautdesert (High Desert). The directions to this castle are unknown; we are only told that Gawain is going north by way of the Gwynedd coast opposite Anglesey and the Wirral Peninsula. After this the description of his route becomes increasingly vague.

Bertilak represents the Bertholais of the Arthurian Vulgate. Indeed, the English translation of the Vulgate renders Bertholais as Bertilak. This Bertholais is associated with Gawain, but does not bear any of the characteristics later ascribed to Bertilak. In the Vulgate, Bertholais and the False Guinevere (whose champion the former was) are exiled to the hinterlands. The suggestion has been made that Bertilak's beautiful wife, the temptress of Gawain, is actually the False Guinevere. Because the poet put Morgan le Fay in Bertilak's house, it is also possible that the Green Knight's wife is an aspect of Morgen, i.e. the Morrigan.

Bertholais owes his name to the Britaelis of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History. Britaelis was Gorlois' servant whose form was assumed by none other than Merlin in the story of Ygerna's seduction by Uther. If Bertholais is Merlin, it is surely significant that the Life of St. Kentigern has Lailoken/Myrddin/Merlin buried ‘not far from the green chapel where the brook Pausayl flows into the River Tweed.’ In other words, the ‘Green Chapel’ is none other than the site of the Scottish Lowland Merlin’s supposed grave.

NOTE:  The Tweed is a relocation of the original Merlin gravesite.  I have written about correct site here:

https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-grave-of-myrddinmerlin.html