Gawain

Gawain is a legendary knight of King Arthur’s Round Table and is usually described as Arthur’s nephew. Medieval romances portray him variously as an ideal courtly warrior, a fierce avenger and a flawed but honourable man.

He is central to works such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and appears throughout French and English Arthurian traditions. His changing character shows how the Arthurian legend was reshaped across centuries and literary cultures.

In Gillian Bradshaw’s Hawk of May, To earn a place in Arthur’s warband, he must overcome fear, resist the legacy of his family and choose the discipline of the Light, beginning the transformation into the champion remembered as Gawain. John Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights retells the early books of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur in modern prose, beginning with Arthur’s concealed birth, the sword that proves his kingship and the wars required to establish the Round Table. Merlin’s guidance and foreknowledge shape the new kingdom, while the stories of Guinevere, Morgan le Fay, Gawain and Lancelot introduce the rival loyalties and desires that threaten Arthur’s ideal. Further fictional perspectives on Gawain can be found in Gillian Bradshaw’s In Winter’s Shadow, Gillian Bradshaw’s Kingdom of Summer, Victor Canning’s The Immortal Wound, and Mary Stewart’s The Wicked Day.