Gawaine, arriving at the Green Chapel, exactly one day after New Year. He found an ancient, hollow barrow or cave, overgrown with clumps of grass, in a steep, craggy valley, considered the possibility that a fiend used it for his devilish devotions – an understandable enough impression, since Gawain had come here in midwinter to undergo his stroke in the beheading game with the Green Knight, Bertilak, at Camelot. Gawain searched long for the location, and finally met the Green Knight on the settled day. There, the Green Knight spared Gawain’s life and revealed his true identity.
Helen Hill Miller puts the Green Chapel below Leek Moor, in northern Staffordshire, where the Black Brook and the Dane River converge. Glennie provides an alternative location, placing the Green Chapel on the southern bank of Solway Firth, at about the tip of the small peninsula north of Abbey Holme.
Sources
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight | c. 1400
The Grene Knight | c. 1500