NIGHTBRINGER | The Arthurian Encyclopedia

Bredbeddle


The true name of the Green Knight in The Greene Knight; the counterpart of Bertilak of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

His sorceress step-mother, Agostes, sent him to Arthur’s court in order to lure Gawaine to Bredbeddle’s castle, as Agostes’ daughter (Bredbeddle’s wife) was secretly in love with him. As in Gawaine, Gawaine accepted Bredbeddle’s Beheading Game challenge and met him a year later at the Green Chapel, where Bredbeddle spared Gawaine’s life.

Bredbeddle later appears in the ballad of King Arthur and King Cornwall as one of Arthur’s knights. When Arthur, Tristan, Gawaine and Bredbeddle went to visit the King of Cornwall’s abode, Bredbeddle, with the aid of a holy book, controlled a fiend known as the Burlow-Beanie (Borlow-Beanie) (whom the king had sent to observe them), which helped Arthur to slay the sorcerer Cornwall.


Sources
The Grene Knight | c. 1500
”King Arthur and King Cornwall” | 16th century