Morgan le Fay and the Green Knight

The child waited, embowered and leafless but for the green girdle at her waist and the shroud of flaxen hair which lay lithely about her shoulders. High amongst the heart-shaped leaves of the linden tree she let her feet play, as if dabbling in the eddies of the brook frothing and foaming far below the boughs. Over that thundering torrent, which twisted down from the rugged slope, through jutting crags and black jagged outcroppings, falling from cliff edge to valley floor, tinkling bells intoned a visitor’s arrival far beyond the glade.

They sang long before she espied him at the gnarled rocks, guiding his steed into the ravine.

He arrived headless; the Green Knight, whose shoulders and thighs drew him to the height of a half-giant. Despite a mutilation at his neck he bore himself with poise and grace, swaying to the lollop. With the looped reins he brushed a coat of snow from his charger’s green mane and nudged his golden spurs into its flanks. Deepest winter fell heavy beyond the confines of the basin while in this dell, where the steep and lofty hills rose up like toothed cliffs, an autumnal breath was held.

To see him from bleeding-shank to unshod feet – every inch of him glorious, every stitch green – brought the girl great delight and she regarded the bloody stump of his decapitation which spat flecks of crimson upon his tunic and mantle. His head he bore beneath one arm, as a soldier might cradle his colours.

The girl slipped from her perch amongst the stillness and flitted silently towards the boiling brook. Her hair’s golden cloak spread behind her as she tip-toed from branch to branch and finally alighted upon the moss at the knight’s back.

‘What joyful tidings do you bring, oh knight?’

Knight and horse wheeled clamorously about. Resplendent in green sash and naked innocence, the girl stood motionless beneath them, indifferent to the flailing hooves that could, at any moment, trample her as they might a hounded deer.

The knight reigned in his mount and swung down from the saddle, head firmly held. ‘This is no place for an infant.’

The girl smiled, weaving fairy fingers amongst the stalks of her fringe. ‘I have come to hear of your adventure and the games you have played.’

‘I am here to meet an agreement, not recount a romance.’

‘Then, meet it, oh knight, so that we might wind up your part and restore your nature.’

‘Le Fay?’

She curtsied and leant one hand upon the tree which burst upwards in a sudden citrine shower of yellow, shedding its leaves and carpeting the grass and stream in gold.

‘Was I not right, when I told you the game couldn’t be refused? That Camelot cannot resist a challenge to its valour? Come, for there is a tale to tell and I am an ear to hear it.’

The knight calmed his consternation and the belching and spitting of his throat before recounting his interruption of the festivities at Camelot and the game of exchanging blows by which King Arthur would be trapped.

The girl made a steeple of her hands as if she might venture into prayer, though she did not.

‘They were cowed by your magnificence and in fright of their lives?’

‘Nay. They were stunned by the game, but being God-fearing men they were not fearful of me.’

‘But, my half-brother was affronted when you offended his courage and he took up your halberd and hewed off your head?’

‘Nay again, my lady, for it was Sir Gawain who acted in stead of his king.’

Silence between them, entwined within that autumnal air, and the girl balled up her fists and shook from head to foot. When the affliction died within her, swallowed in new schemes and strategies, she simpered as a child might.