Note 637 — Chapter IX · THE SWORD-DANCE

Syr Gawayne and the Grene Knyghte (ed. Madden, Bannatyne Club, 1839); cf. J. L. Weston, The Legend of Sir Gawain, 85. Arthur was keeping New Year’s Day, when a knight dressed in green, with a green beard, riding a green horse, and bearing a holly bough, and an axe of green steel, entered the hall. He challenged any man of the Round Table to deal him a buffet with the axe on condition of receiving one in return after the lapse of a year. Sir Gawain accepts. The stranger’s head is cut off, but he picks it up and rides away with it. This is a close parallel to the resurrection of the slain ‘wild man.’