Volume 6 Number 1 Article 11 12-15-1979 Sir Gawain's Missing Day Joe Christopher Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Christopher, Joe (1979) "Sir Gawain's Missing Day," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 6 : No. 1 , Article 11. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss1/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Notes a missing day in chronology of events at Morgan le Fay’s castle, and suggests a relation to themes of falseness in the poem. Additional Keywords Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Bonnie GoodKnight This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol6/iss1/11 Sir Gawain's Missing Day by Joe Christopher That a day is lost in the account of Sir Gawain's that the poet has deliberately telescoped the days, so visit to the castle of Morgan le Fay in Sir Gawain and the that the three days of Christmas festivities are followed Green Knight is common knowledge. He arrives at the castle by, and balanced by, the three days of hunting. Watson on Christmas eve (or, at least, he seems to - the purpose also suggests a dual translation from one group of three of this note is to question that event); the poet describes days to the second, so that the audience's attention is not the Christmas celebration of the following day and then drawn to the missing day: first, an impression of two sums u p : days is given in the verse when St. John's Day is men­ tioned, by the use of an appositive (11. 1021-1022); and, Much dut watz per dryuen pat day and pat oper, second, the events of the evening of St. John's Day are And pe pryd as pro pronge in perafter; elaborated into a hundred and one lines, so that an impres­ pe ioye of sayn Jonez day watz gentyle to here, sion of the passage of time is given (11. 1024-1125).4 And watz pe last of p e layk, leudez per po3ten. per wer gestes to go vpon pe gray morne. 1 At this point, I wish to turn to another extremely (1020-1024) odd passage in the poem which mentions the passage of days - one which, so far as I am aware, no critic has pre­ [With much feasting they fared the first and the viously discussed - and one which w ill, ultim ately, n e x t d a y , provide a third explanation,, neither textual nor struc­ and as heartily the third came hastening after: tural, for Gawain's missing day. the gaiety of Saint John's day was glorious to hear; and that finished their revels, as folk there intended, Immediately before Gawain arrives at Morgan le Fay's for there were guests who must go in the grey morning. castle, he prays for a lodging in which to celebrate (42. 1-3, 5-6; p. 50)] Christmas. What critics ignore is that he does this twice; the first time is at the end of the thirty-first stanza: Since St. John's day gets the chronology to December 27, and the three days of the hunts before Gawain's meeting p in peryl and payne and plytes ful harde with the Green Knight on New Year's Day must occupy Bi contray caryes p is kny3t, tyl Krystmasse euen, December 29, 30, and 31, obviously something has happened a l o n e ; to December 28. That "pe gray morne" upon which the p e kny t wel p at tyde guests leave is actually the first day of the hunts, To Mary made his mone, thus skipping from St. John's day to the final sequence, pat ho him red to ryde is shown at the beginning of the third section of the poem: And w ysse hym to sum w one. (7 3 3 -7 3 9 ) Ful erly bifore pe day pe folk vprysen, [Thus in peril and pain and in passes grievous Gestes pat go wolde hor gromez ay calden, till Chrlstmas-eve that country he crossed all And pay busken vp bilyue blonkkez to sadel, alone in need. Tyffen her takles, trussen her males, The knight did at that tide Richen hem p e rychest, to tyde alle arayde, his plaint to Mary plead, Lepen vp ly tly, lachen her brydgles, her rider's road to guide Vche wy3e on his way per tym wel lyked. and to some lodging lead. (31. 21-27; p. 43)] pe leue lorde of pe londe watz not p e last Arayed for pe rydyng, with renkkez ful mony; After "Krystmasse euen" has been reached in this stanza, Ete a sop hastyly, when he hade herde masse, the next begins, "Bi a mounte on p e morne meryly he With bugle to bent-felde he buskez bylyue. rydes": I feel certain that almost all students trans­ (1126-1136) lating this poem in some Middle English course have at first thought that "on pe morne" indicates Christmas mor­ [Before the first daylight the folk uprose: ning after Christmas eve. But they have noticed the guests that were to go for their grooms they immediately that the stanza goes on to give a fuller, c a l l e d ; more dramatic prayer for shelter "to-morne" (1.756), to­ and they hurried up in haste horses to saddle, morrow morning. And probably most teachers of such to stow all their stuff and strap up their bags. classes, if the question came up at all, explained that The men of rank arrayed them, for riding got ready, the previous bob-and-wheel seems to have "not counted" - to saddle leaped sw iftly, seized then their bridles, the poet stuck the prayer in there, rather as preparation and went off on their ways where their wish was to go. fqr his full day-before-Christmas stanza. I have suggested The liege lord of the land was not last of them all this sort of thing myself. But I have come to be to be ready to ride with a rout of his men; doubtful of this anti-textual argument. If the poem says he ate a hurried mouthful after the hearing of Mass "on ^e morne", I hope it means "on^e morne". C. S. and with horn to the hunting field he hastened at Lewis, in his essay on Hamlet, comments that "A child is once. (46. 1-11; p. 53)] always thinking about those details in a story which a grown-up regards as indifferent"5; if I do not quite suggest that the reader should return to childhood, at Sir Israel Gollancz has suggested in his edition least I ask him to return to that first reaction as a that the first of these passages has an omitted line, men­ s tu d e n t. tioning Childermas, December 28 - inserted after the description of St. John's Day, it would become "pe last [day] of pe layk".2 Norman Davis, in his revised edition As I have said, I have not found any critic who o f Sir Gawain, has accepted this interpretation.3 discusses this passage.6 But I turned to the translators; J. R. R. Tolkien, in his translation of Sir Gawain, a c c e p ts they at least had to Indicate what the words meant. As G o lla nc z ' suggestion to the point of translating (in might be expected, several stick closely to the phrase in brackets) the additional line he suggested (42. 4, p.50), the original - specifically Brian Stone, Margaret Williams, as is explained at the end of the Tolkien introduction and J. R. R. Tolkien (32.1; p. 43), who use "in the mor­ (p. 24). But not all critics have agreed. Melvin R. ning", and Theodore Howard Banks, Jr., who uses "on the Watson has argued that accepting Gollancz' theory would m o rn " .7 One translator, John Gardner, translates the line, "destroy the tone of the passage". He suggests instead "By a mountain next morning merrily he rides"® - in which 39 I believe he is pushing for an ambiguity, so the time may Whether or not my readers w ill allow me this exten­ be the morning of Christmas eve. Very surprising to me sion of meaning, certainly one finds here the medieval was the fact that three translators use "next morning" - topos which Curtius calls "straying in a wood" - the most James L. Rosenberg, Burton Raffel, and Marie Borroff. famous example perhaps being the opening of the D i v i n e I found this surprising simply because the critics Comedy; a topos which Spenser also uses in the first canto ignore the passage, but I also found it encouraging - of the first book of The Faerie Q u e e n e .