The eldest son of King Lot of Orkney and Queen Morgawse, brother of Gareth, Gaheris and Agravaine, chief of the Orkney clan (which included his brothers Agravaine, Gaheris, Gareth, and Mordred), Arthur's favorite nephew, and one of the most strongest and famous knights of the Round Table. He features in the earliest legends of King Arthur and appears in the Celtic texts as Gwalchmai, meaning the Hawk of May. He got his name from a hermit who had baptised him and through intercessions given him the ability to, no matter how wounded he was after a battle, be healed and get his strength back at the time for dinner.

These are some highlights of his career according to Malory: he first came to court with his mother and three full brothers between the two early rebellions of the petty British kings against Arthur. He seems to have returned about the time of Arthur's marriage and the establishment of the Round Table, when he asked and received Arthur's promise to make him knight - they had now learned of their uncle-nephew relationship. At Arthur's wedding feast, Gawaine was sent, by Merlin's advice, on the quest of the white hart. On this quest, he accidentally slew a lady who rushed between him and her lord, whom he had just defeated in battle and was about to behead; for this his brother Gaheris, then acting as his squire, rebuked him severely, and Guenevere ordained that Gawaine should "for ever while he lived... be with all ladies, and... fight for their quarrels".

When the five kings of Denmark, Ireland, the Vale, Soleise, and Longtains invaded Britain, Gawaine, Griflet, and Arthur followed Kay's example to strike them down and save the battle. After this campaign, Gawaine was elevated to the Round Table on King Pellinore's advice. Nevertheless, Gawaine later slew Pellinore in revenge for Lot's death [though Malory only alludes to the incident without describing the scene].

When Arthur banished Gawaine's favorite cousin, Ywaine, on suspicion of conspiracy with his mother, Morgan le Fay, Gawaine chose to accompany Ywaine. They met Sir Marhaus and later the three knights met the damsels "Printemps, Été, and Automne" in the forest of Arroy. Leaving his companions to make the first choice of damsels, Gawaine ended with the youngest [who, however, left him and went with another knight]. It was on this adventure that Gawaine became involved in the affair of Pelleas and Ettard, playing Pelleas false by sleeping with Ettard, for which cause "Pelleas loved never after Sir Gawaine."

These adventures lasted about a year, by the end of which time Arthur was sending out messengers to recall his nephews. In Arthur's continental campaign against the Roman emperor Lucius, Gawaine and Bors de Ganis carried Arthur's message to Lucius, to leave the land or else do battle. When Lucius defied Arthur's message, hot words passed on either side, culminating when Gawaine beheaded Lucius' cousin Sir Gainus in a rage, which forced Gawaine and Bors to take rather a bloody and hasty leave.

Malory seems to insinuate that Gawaine was accessory to Gaheris' murder of their mother, though

Sir Gawaine was wroth that Gaheris had slain his mother and let Sir Lamorak escape.

Certainly Gawaine was with his brothers Agravaine, Gaheris, and Mordred when they later ambushed and killed Morgawse's lover, Lamorak, for which Gawaine seems to have lost Trimstram's goodwill. Despite Gawaine's vengefulness, however, Lancelot, who had once rescued him from Carados of the Dolorous Tower, remained his friend until the end.

At the time of Galahad's arrival in Camelot, Gawaine reluctantly, and at Arthur's command, was the first to attempt to draw Balin's Sword from the floating marble; shortly afterward, it was Gawaine who first proposed the Quest of the Holy Grail, in the midst of the fervor which followed the Grail's miraculous visit to court.

Gawaine rather quickly tired of the Quest, however, and had very bad fortune on it besides; in addition to being seriously wounded himself by Galahad, in divine retribution for having attempted to draw Balin's Sword, he slew both King Bagdemagus and Yvonet li Avoutres - the latter and apparently the former also by mischance in friendly joust.

Sir Gawaine had a custom that he used daily at dinner and at supper, that he loved well all manner of fruit, and in especial apples and pears. And therefore whosomeever dined or feasted Sir Gawaine would commonly purvey for good fruit for him.

Sir Pinel le Savage, a cousin of Lamorak's, once tried to use this taste to avenge Lamorak, by poisoning the fruit at a small dinner party of the Queen's.

Gawaine had "three sons, Sir Gingalin, Sir Florence, and Sir Lovel, these two were begotten upon Sir Brandiles' sister."

Gawaine was not party to Agravaine and Mordred's plotting against Lancelot and the Queen; indeed, Gawaine even warned his brothers and sons against what they were doing. When Lancelot killed Agravaine and all three of Gawaine's sons in escaping from Guenevere's chamber, Gawaine was ready to forgive all their deads, and pleaded earnestly with Arthur to allow Lancelot to defend Guenevere and prove their innocence in trial by combat.

Not until Lancelot slew the unarmed Gareth and Gaheris in rescuing Guenevere from the stake did Gawaine feel bound to take vengeance, in pursuit of which vengeance he stirred Arthur besiege Lancelot first in Joyous Garde and later, after the Pope had enjoined peace in Britain, in Lancelot's lands in France. Gawaine would continually challenge Lancelot to single combat; Lancelot would defeat but refuse to kill Gawaine, who would challenge him again as soon as his wounds were healed.

Learning of Mordred's usurpation, Arthur returned to England, to meet Mordred's resistance at Dover; in this battle, the wounds Gawaine had recieved from Lancelot broke open fatally. Between making his last confession and dying, Gawaine wrote a letter to Lancelot, asking his prayers and forgiveness and begging him to hurry back to England to Arthur's assistance. His death took place at noon, the tenth of May, and

then the king let inter him in a chapel within Dover Castle; and there yet all men may see the skull of him.

His ghost appeared to Arthur in a dream the night of Trinity Sunday, accompanied by the ladies whose battles he had fought in life. In the dream Gawaine warned Arthur to avoid battle with Mordred until after Lancelot had arrived.

These are not all of Gawaine's adventures even according to Malory, and a recapitulation according to earlier sources would be far more favorable to the famous knight. Malory did not seem to like him, making him a rather unpleasant personality and not even all that impressive a fighter, when compared with other great champions, being defeated by Lancelot, Tristram, Bors de Ganis, Percivale, Pelleas, Marhaus, Galahad, Carados of the Dolorous Tower, and Breuse Sans Pitie. Presumably Lamorak, Gareth and others could also have defeated him, had he finished a fair fight with them. [Once, indeed, he did fight Gareth unknowingly, but left off at once when Lynette revealed Gareth's identity.]

Modern treatments are based largely on Malory. By the time we reach Tennyson, Gawaine's courtesy had degenerated into smooth talk and his chivalry into casual love affairs. William Morris turned him from one of Guenevere's most ardent defenders into one of her chief accusers. Edward Arlington Robinson retained the superficiality of Tennyson's character. John Erskine seems simply to have accepted this version of Gawaine as a matter of course. Hal Foster, while making him a major and generally likable character in Prince Valiant, tends to emphasize his lightness and lady-killing qualities. T.H. White, while generally not unsympathetic, turned him into a rather brusque personality and even gave the adventure of the Green Knight to Gareth instead.

It remained for Monty Python and the Holy Grail to sink Gawaine to his lowest point yet: in a line that goes by so fast you're likely to miss it; Gawaine is named as one of the knights slain by the vicious white rabbit! Vera Chapman created a second Gawaine, nephew and namesake of the more famous, rather than attempt to rehabilitate Malory's character. One of the few exceptions to the modern picture of Gawaine is Sutcliff's, in Sword at Sunset, and her Gwalchmai seems to owe as little to the pre-Malory Gawaine s to the post-Malory one.

Once, however, before his place was usurped by Lancelot, Gawaine was considered the greatest of all the knights, the epitome both of prowess and courtessy, the touchstone against whom all others must prove themselves. This is the Gawaine we find in Chrétien de Troyes.

Chrétien's first romance, Erec and Enide, names Gawaine as one of his uncle Arthur's most prudent counselors, and gives him as first of all Arthur's good knights in the roll call beginning at line 1691.

In Chrétien's next romance, Cligés, Gawaine is much impressed by the titular knight's performance during the first three days of the Oxford tournament, and decides to open the last day's combat himself. He modestly says that he fully expects to have no better luch than Sagramore, Lancelot, and Percivale in tilting against the still-unknowing champion, but thinks he may fare better in the sword play: at this stage of the legend, nobody has ever beaten Gawaine at swordfighting.

When the combat comes, Gawaine and Cligés knock each other from their horses, then fight with swords until Arthur calls a halt while the outcome still remains undecided. Gawaine is delighted to learn that he is the young champion's uncle, his sister Soredamors having married Cligés father Alexander.

In Chrétien's Lancelot, Gawaine accompanies his good friend Lancelot part of the way on their journey to King Badegamu's Gore. When Lancelot rides in the cart for the sake of getting to the queen, Gawaine declines the dishonor and follows along on his horse; later, when Lancelot insists on sleeping in the forbidden "Deadly Bed", Gawaine quietly accepts the lesser bed his hostess offers him. My own reading of these episodes is that Gawaine shows greater prudence in the first and greater modesty in the second.

Other interpretations are certainly possible, and it might be argued that Lancelot's success in crossing the Sword Bridge and Gawaine's failure in crossing the Water Bridge can be traced to Lancelot's riding in the cart and Gawaine's refusal to do so; also it would have shown greater courtesy and generosity on Gawaine's part, when offered him the choice by his friend, to take the Sword Bridge and leave the comparitevly less hazardous Water Bridge to Lancelot.

On the other hand, Gawaine has not, like Lancelot, ridden two horses [one of them borrowed] to death and left himself without a mount and therefore in need of the ignominous cart ride; while, as to the one's success and the other's failure to cross the bridges into Gore - if Gore is indeed a branch of the eschatological Otherworld, I might venture the very tentative theory that Lancelot's desire for Guenevere renders him, in some spiritual sense, already dead. This might make the next world more accessible to him than to the still vital and generally viruous Gawaine, who, while already displaying amorous tendencies, seems to restrict them to more available ladies - for instance, the lively Lunette of Yvain, which can be called a companion piece to Lancelot. In Yvain, Chrétien tells us of yet another sister of Gawaine's, whom Phyllis Ann Karr call for convenience "Alteria" in her book The Arthurian Companion.

Chrétien's last and unfinished romance, Perceval, gives us our fullest view of the author's approach to this hero: at about line 4750, the emphasis twists over from Percivale to Gawaine and, except in one short episode, stays there until Chrétien laid down his pen. Here we see several instances of Gawaine's modesty, or prudence, with his name: he never refuses to give it when asked outright, but rarely if ever volunteers it, and sometimes requests those he meets not to ask his identity for a certain period of time.

He has superior medical and herbal knowledge. We get a flashback glimpse of him acting as judge or magistrate - perhaps filling in for his royal uncle? - meting out strict justice to uphold Arthur's laws, yet incapable of understanding why one so chastized should harbor a grudge against the judge. We find him carrying Excalibur. We learn that the poor love him for his generosity, and we watch him put his own concerns at risk in order to please a child, the Maid with Little Sleeves, whom he treats like as courteously as if she were fully grown.

At the same time, we see his flirtatiousness in full swing with the young King of Escavalon's sister, and we find hanging over his head at least one and possibly two charges of murder. The likeliest explenation I see is that all such charges refer to men slain in honest battle [Gawaine stands ready to defend himself in trial by combat], and a similar charge is raised against his cousin Ywaine over the death of Esclados the Red. In Perceval, Gawaine finds himself again in what may well be an outpost of the Otherworld - the Rock of Canguin, where he meets his grandmother Ygerne, his mother (here unnamed), and the sister, Clarissant, he never knew he had. Before learning who they are, he answers the old queen's questions concerning King Lot's four sons [without revealing that he is himself the oldest of them, Gawaine gives the same list we have from later sources], King Uriens' two Yvains, and King Arthur's health.

As early as Chrétien's pages we also meet Gawaine's great charger Gringolet, whom later romancers retained long after they appeared to have forgotten Gawaine's sisters. As I recall, in 'Gawaine at the Grail Castle' Jessie Weston suggests that in now-lost versions of the story, Gawaine may have achieved the Grail.

The Gawaine of Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight is certainly an idealistic young knight very nearly as worthy, pure, and polite as mortal can be - though I must add, in fairness, that critical opinion is divided as to whether the sexual mores of the Gawaine in this poem reflect the general character of the Gawaine of other early romances, are a conscious deviation from the tradition on the part of an individual author, or even have anything to do with his behaviour toward Sir Bercilak's wife, whom he refuses, by this theory, through refusal to betray his host's hospitality. For an excellent study of Gawaine's pre-Malory character, at least in the English romances, see The Knightly Tales of Sir Gawaine, with introductions and translations by Louis B. Hall.

Even as late as the Vulgate, Gawaine is definitely second only to his close friend Lancelot as the greatest knight of the world (excluding spiritual knights like Galahad). In this versin Gawaine comes across as much steadier and more dependable than Lancelot, much less prone than Lancelot to fits of madness, to berserk lust in battle, to going off on incognito adventures for the hell of it without telling the court in advance, or to settling down uninvited in somebody else's pavilion and killing the owner in his return.

The Vulgate tells us that Arthur made Gawaine constable of his household and gave him the sword Excalibur for use throughout his life. For a time, as Arthur's next of kin and favorite nephew, Gawaine was named to be his successor. Gawaine was well formed, of medium height, loved the poor, was loyal to his uncle, never spoke evil of anyone, and was a favorite with the ladies. Many of his companions, however, would have surpassed him in endurance if his strength had not doubled at noon. In the Vulgate , when Gawaine appears in Arthur's dream, he comes not with ladies and damses exclusively, but with a great number of poor people whom he succored in life.

The romancers seem agreed on the fact of Gawaine's strength always doubling or, at least, being renewed at noon.

Then had Sir Gawaine such a grace and gift that an holy man had given to him, that every day in the year, from underne [9.00 am] till high noon, his might increased those three hours as much as thrice his strength... And for his sake King Arthur made an ordinance, that all manner of battles for any quarrels that should be done afore King Arthur should begin at underne. [Malory XX,21]

Modern scholars seem satisified that this is because Gawaine was originally a solar god. The Vulgate gives a more Christian explanation, alluded to by Malory: the hermit who baptized Gawaine and for whom the child was named prayed for a special grace as a gift to the infant, and was granted that Gawaine's strength and vigor would always be fully restored at noon. For this reason many knights would not fight him until afternoon, when his strength returned to normal. Sometimes the reason for Gawaine's noon strength is described as being kept a secret; the fact, however, must have become obvious early in Gawaine's career. Nor was Gawaine the only knight to enjoy such an advantage; Ironside's strength also increased daily until noon, while Marhaus' appears to have increased in the evening.

Also among the numerous ladies whose names are coupled with that of Gawaine are Floree, who may be identical with Sir Brandiles' sister, and Dame Ragnell, his favorite wife and the mother of his son Guinglain (surely identical with Gingalin) according to 'The Wedding of Sir Gawaine and Dame Ragnell', which mentions that Gawaine was often married (and presumably, often widowed) - which is one way to reconcile the various tales of his loves and romances.

I have heard his name pronounced both Gah-WANE (rhymes with Elaine) and GAH-w'n. The first seems by far the most popular today, but I prefer the second; I have no scholarly opinion to back me up, but GAH-w'n seems the preferred pronunciation in the dictionaries I have checked, it seems to match the pronunciation of the modern derivative name Gavin, and emphasizing the first syllable seems a better safeguard against aural confusion with such names as Bragwaine and Ywaine.