The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain
The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain (also commonly spelt Golagros and Gawane) is a Middle Scots Arthurian romance written in alliterative verse of 1362 lines, known solely from a printed edition of 1508 in the possession of the National Library of Scotland.
In the second, far longer, episode, Arthur and his men come to a castle on the Rhone, and learn that its lord (named Gologras), pledges allegiance to no higher sovereign.
The tale upholds the longstanding Arthurian tradition that Sir Gawain represents the paragon of chivalry, and his characteristic fairness makes him gain more for King Arthur than will violence alone.
No manuscript copy survives, and the work is known solely through The Knightly Tale of Golagrus and Gawane,[6] a blackletter printed book issued in Edinburgh by the Chepman and Myllar Press (1508).
[1] This year was the advent of the very first books being printed in Scotland, by the aforementioned press (Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar, proprietors).
[2] However, Frederic Madden in his edition (1839) ascribed the work to the poet of The Awntyrs off Arthure[7] (whereas modern commentators do not venture farther than to remark on the identical stanzaic structure[1][2]).
Madden also gave credence to the notion that Awyntyrs (and by extension Gologras too) were the work of one "Clerk of Tranent", acting on the hint in a line of William Dunbar's poetry.
[15] Golagros's castle is in the Rhône valley (somewhat confusing since on the first instance (line 319) the original print reads "Rome,")[16] but this is to be emended as "Rone," as occurs elsewhere.
[17] Arthur vows to subjugate Golagros's castle on his way to the Holy Land, but only puts this into action after reaching Jerusalem, retracing his route back to the Rhône.
Approaching a certain city, Arthur's large band starts running out of victuals, and Sir Kay is sent inside to buy food and provisions.
Moored alongside are forty sea-going vessels bound for distant corners of the world and King Arthur asks who is the overlord of this wonderful place.
Arthur and his retinue camp before the castle, pitching pavilion type tents, planning their strategy, with the possibility of laying a siege in case negotiations break down.
Then a great sound of the trumpet was heard from the castle, and the man who blew it strutted towards a tower, fully armed, flashing sunlight in his direction from his shield and brandishing his spear.
[note 5][23]) Arthur's side lose Owales and Iwell as prisoners, but capture Agalus and Hew, so the honours at the end of it all, remain even.
Arthur inquires its meaning, and again Spynagrose explains that the bells were an announcement that the castle lord Gologras himself was now entering the combat in person.
Spynagrose is fearful of Gawain's safety and survival, and offers him specific tips in combat, such as to sustain consecutive blows with the shield no matter what happens, and to strike back when the adversary finally lets up, being out of breath.
They pick themselves up from the ground, pretend to fight for a while (a myle way, the time it takes to walk a mile, or about twenty minutes or half an hour[24]), then Gologras leads Sir Gawain off the field as his prisoner.
A whole weeks feasting ensues in celebration, and at the end of nine days, as King Arthur prepares to leave, he relinquishes his sovereignty of the land and gives full control back to Gologras.
It was written in the Anglo-Scottish border country, a region that produced many other poems such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Awntyrs off Arthure.
In the case of The Knightly Tale of Gologras and Gawain, however – unlike its more famous cousin – the last four lines of every stanza form a "separate quatrain... linked by final rhyme to the ninth line", a style of alliteration and rhyme that is identical to that found in the Middle English poem The Awntyrs off Arthure[5] Perhaps this challenging rhyme scheme, coupled with the poem's use of a large number of technical terms for combat and costume, a Scots dialect and general unavailability of the text, has contributed to its relative, although undeserved, neglect.
So the lord declares "It is not in the habit of my family to refuse food to anyone who asks," and he grabs the peacock (probably by its spit) and slugs Kay in the neck, leaving him with an indelible burn mark.
Gawain leaves the spot perplexed but soon gains an inkling of the circumstances when he encounters a maiden who happen to be the knight's betrothed.
Gawain later learns from Brandelis that this knight turns out to be the ruler of the Proud Castle, named the Riche Soudoier,[note 10] and the lady was his amie.
But in the First Perceval Continuation, the life of the Riche Sodoier's fiancee is at stake, because, he says, if the girl he loves knows that he has been defeated, she will die of grief.
He encounters this army in France, defeats and kills its commander, sending the army back to Rome in disarray, along with the bodies of sixty of the chief senators of Rome, and reaches Tuscany (an area of Italy to the immediate south of the ancient region of Cisalpine Gaul) before news reaches him of Mordred's treachery, prompting an inauspicious and premature return.
[36] The Knightly tale of Gologras and Gawain, also, has King Arthur fighting in France and leading an army towards Tuscany: "In the tyme of Arthur, as trew men me tald / The King turnit on ane tyde towart Tuskane, / Hym to seik ovr the sey, that saiklese was sald, / The syre that sendis all seill, suthly to sane.
"[37] ("In the time of Arthur, as honest men have told me, the king set off one day for Tuscany, to seek Our Lord over the sea who was betrayed and died for us, our benevolent Father in all truthfulness.")
The episode is very similar to one composed two hundred years later in Middle English alliterative verse, the opening scene of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight found in MS Cotton Nero A.x, and is possibly its direct source.
A 14th-century Middle English poem Amis and Amiloun, found in the famous Auchinleck Manuscript, tells a story that contains many elements and motifs that are ultimately derived from European folklore.
"[42] A mythological tale in the first of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, one involving Annwvyn, not-world, or the Otherworld, tells of a hunting expedition undertaken by Pwyll Lord of Dyved.
