Throw Everything You Thought You Knew Out the Window

“First I threatened you playfully with a pretence, / And avoided giving you a gash, doing so rightly / Because of the agreement we made on the first night, / When you faithfully and truly kept your pledged word, / Gave me all your winnings as an honest man should” (Lines 2345-2349).

When the Green Knight, or Bertilak of Hautdesert as we later know him, says this to Gawain, it was the moment that I realized the Green Knight was Lord Bertilak from the castle that Gawain stayed in on his journey. This moment is important because it took everything I thought I understood about the poem and turned it upside down, therefore capturing my attention. It also left me wondering: how did he do that? Is this… magic?