Beheading game
Originating in the Irish legend of the Fled Bricrenn, the beheading game appears in several Arthurian romances, most notably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
When Gawain makes the impulsive decision to decapitate the Knight, the values of Camelot require that he subject himself to death in the name of upholding the rules of the challenge.
Gawain is incapable of bravely submitting to death, instead concealing a magic girdle that he believes will keep him from harm, thus demonstrating that he values survival over honour.
[2] The unwritten folkloric origins of the trope remain unknown, but some philological scholars speculate that the Exchange of Blows derives from an ancient myth in which Summer and Winter do battle at the change of seasons.
[7] The earliest recorded incidence of the trope of the beheading game is in the Fled Bricrenn (Bricriu's Feast),[8] part of the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology.
[9] The overarching plot of the Fled Bricrenn involves three heroes – Cú Chulainn, Conall Cernach, and Lóegaire Búadach – who are each independently told by the titular character that they are worthy of the Champion's Portion and are invited to a feast in their honour.
There, a strange churl arrives at the court of Conchobar mac Nessa, the king of Ulster, and challenges its members to a beheading game.
In the poem, Caradoc, a young Knight of the Round Table, is tricked into participating in a beheading game by his sorcerous father, who arrives at King Arthur's court in disguise.
[16] While Caradoc's narrative added more details to the game than were found in the Fled Bricrenn, the basic plot structure remains the same, as the test of loyalty and bravery inherent in the original work translated capably to the conventions of chivalric romance.
[17] For this reason, the structure of the original Irish myth remains mostly intact in the French romances such as La Mule sans frein, Hunbaut, and Perlesvaus.
[21] In Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, meanwhile, Gareth undergoes in his chapter a number of trials which he must overcome in order to learn the merits and responsibilities of knighthood.
[24] After repeatedly beheading the Red Knight, Gareth decides that the noblest option is to spare his enemy's life, leaving the task incomplete and preserving his chastity.
[25] The Arthurian knight most often subjected to the beheading game is Arthur's nephew Gawain, the hero of both La Mule sans frein and the Hunbaut.
[26] Partway through his quest for the bridle and amidst a forest filled with malevolent wild animals, a churl allows Gawain to spend the night in his castle as long as he agrees to a beheading game.
[28][29] Perhaps the best-known and most developed iteration of the beheading game in medieval romance, however, is the late 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
[43] While Arthurian chivalry emphasises the honourable nature of a sacrificial death, Gawain's decision to behead the Green Knight, which then requires him to fulfill the other side of the contract, is far more foolish than admirable.
[46] Literary critic Piero Boitani notes that Gawain is initially presented to the reader as "the perfect representative of the virtues which that society has elevated to principles of life", making his failure to uphold those values at the end of the narrative that much more disturbing.
For instance, the Celts believed that decapitation was an honourable form of execution for a foe who had fought valiantly, while for the English, beheading was a punishment reserved for traitors.
[51] The magical nature of the head as the container of human power is also not present in the medieval English as it is in Celtic belief,[52] making the Green Knight a sort of pagan figure in a Christian world where death, particularly decapitation, is final.
[53] Elizabeth Scala, a medievalist with the University of Texas at Austin, has used this different tone to explain why Gawain makes the decision to behead the Green Knight.
[60] By disguising both his supernatural abilities and his true motivations, the challenger exploits the differences Huizinga elucidates between play, a simple form of recreation which is devoid of real-world consequence, and game, which has a designated structure and purpose.
[67] The beheading game can thus be seen as a godgame, in which a godlike game-maker designs a contest that appears unwinnable for their pawn, with the intention of awakening the hero to a greater truth of the universe.
[75] This exchange of mythologies also occurred in the reverse direction: The Turke and Sir Gawain is an adaptation of the Icelandic Þorsteins saga Víkingssonar, albeit with an added beheading game.
In both narratives, the hero accompanies an otherworldly stranger to a distant land, where both gain magical gifts, including invisibility, by which they can defeat an enemy.
