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b"Sir Gawain & The Green KnightSir Gawain and The Green Knight is the original Christmas Ghost Story. Or technically a supernatural story set at Christmas in the kingdom of Logres ruled by King Arthur. It's pretty gothic.This is a prose translation of a Middle English poem called Sir Gawain and The Green Knight.\\xa0The translation by Jessie Weston was published in 1898 and though it is certainly not Middle English she has left enough archaic words in to keep that flavour.Jessie Weston herself was born in 1850 in Surrey, England, the daughter of a tea merchant. When she was young the family moved to Bournemouth off England\\u2019s south coast and she began writing there. She studied in Hildesheim in Germany and in Paris and at the Crystal Palace School of Art in South London. \\xa0She was most famous for her studies of Arthurian romances and the Grail legend where she put forth the ideas that the material was actually pre-Christian and pagan in origin. T S Eliot\\u2019s The Wasteland was influenced by Weston\\u2019s Arthurian studies.\\xa0The Green Knight as it stands was composed no later than the end of the 14th Century (the date of the manuscript) and may be much older. The language is Mercian influenced Middle English, probably from Lancashire. The boundary between Mercian and Northumbrian Old English runs through Lancashire and its dialect is influenced by both, but South Lancashire and Cheshire have Midlands\\u2019 such as pronouncing the \\u2018g\\u2019 in \\u2018king\\u2019 and \\u2018thing\\u2019.If you\\u2019re interested in Old English dialects, check out Simon Roper\\u2019s Youtube Channel for a real treat.\\xa0The poem shows signs of oral storytelling with the rich, detailed descriptions that run in sequences and would probably delight an audience as they were elaborated.\\xa0The themes are of honour and courage, as befitted the courtly audience, but also of love and fashion, which traditionally interest ladies. Tricky subject these days, but that was the established view for centuries.\\xa0Things change. I for one embrace change, while I mourn what it lost. I\\u2019m a bit like the VoiceOver by Galadriel at the start of the Fellowship of The Ring movie.There are folkloric features which Weston perhaps emphasis because she was interested in them: He bears a holly bough to symbolise life and rebirth. He pole vaults over water as fairies can\\u2019t normally cross running water. The bargain is for a year and a day which is in all good fairy tales.\\xa0The motif of the talking head appears again and again in Celtic stories: Bran the Blessed, and Bricriu\\u2019s Feast from the Ulster Cycle where the beheading challenge is seen.\\xa0Of course the severed head is seen on a platter in the Perceval/Parsifal/Peredur Stories.The old lady in the castle is the famous with Morgana La Fee.\\u201cI trow\\u201d is \\u201cI think\\u201d or \\u201cI believe\\u201d\\u201cIn sooth\\u201d is \\u201ctruly\\u201d, \\u201creally\\u201d \\u2018fo sho\\u2019\\u201cWit, wot, witen\\u2019 are \\u2019to know\\u2019 . So \\u201c I wit\\u201d is cognate with the German \\u201cIch weiss\\u201d or the Dutch \\u201cek weet\\u201d\\u201cList\\u201d is \\u201clike\\u201d or \\u201cplease\\u201d\\xa0\\u201cAs he may list\\u201d \\xa0\\u201cAs he pleases\\u201d\\u201cWelkin\\u201d is sky.\\u201cHearken\\u201d is \\u201chear, or listen to\\u201dGoing through the recording as I edit, it strikes me that perhaps the green lace on the axe is the one that Gawain later gets from the lady and transpires to have been the knight\\u2019s. It was the magic of this lace that allowed him to survive the blow. Not sure why I didn\\u2019t figure that before. This is just what a modern author would be: place an item and bury it in detail so its significance isn\\u2019t grasped until much later.It\\u2019s mainly showing not telling too. We get some insight into Gawain\\u2019s thinking, but mostly the situations are simply described and we infer internal motivations and ruminations from what we hear. Described.I also think it\\u2019s Support the showVisit us here: www.ghostpod.orgBuy me a coffee if you're glad I do this: https://ko-fi.com/tonywalkerIf you really want to help me, become a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/barcudMusic by The Heartwood Institute: https://bit.ly/somecomeback\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices"