“Morpurgo's dramatic telling captures the vitality of the tale as well as its beauty and mystery.” — Booklist (starred review) Welcome to a medieval world full of sword fights and shape-shifting, monsters and magic, and timeless characters both gallant and wonderfully human. Written anonymously in the fourteenth century, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is retold in its entirety by Michael Morpurgo in a lively and accessible narration that captures all the tale’s drama and humor. Vivid illustrations by the celebrated Michael Foreman infuse this classic tale with dragons, swords, and medieval pageantry.

"This Norton Critical Edition of the anonymously written fourteenth-century Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is derived from a verse translation by Marie Borroff, first translated in 1967. The poem follows Gawain, a knight of King Arthur's court, as his honor is tested by the Green Knight. After succeeding in beheading the Green Knight, who survives the ordeal, Gawain must uphold his end of the bargain and, after a year's time, meet with the Green Knight again so that the knight may return the grim favor and behead Gawain. The "Contexts" in this Critical Edition provide readers with selections of the poem in its original Middle English, as well as other Arthurian stories that may have influenced the anonymous Gawain-poet. "Criticism" includes a selection of essays on themes ranging from the poem's descriptive techniques, to its use of time and gender. A chronology and selected bibliography are also included"--

One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that " helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia" (?Sunday Telegraph?).

Sir Gawains Little Green Book retells two of the classic stories about one of King Arthurs foremost knights. The Green Knight takes its title and its story from the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In The Green Knight Sir Gawain reminisces, looking back on his life from his point of view as an aging legend. He recalls his youth, when he was much greener, and his first adventure, the only one that has remained his through all the centuries. One Christmas the knights of King Arthur are waiting for the Yuletide banquet. Arthur, as is his custom, will not start a meal on a great feast until some wonder has been seen or miracle performed. This Christmas he is rewarded by a huge, green giant riding into his castle on his green horse, carrying a huge green axe. The giant proposes a simple game, an exchange of blows. One knight gets to try to chop the giants head off with the green axe. In a year and a day that knight will seek out the Green Knight, offering his neck for a return stroke. No one is eager to take up this challenge, and just when it looks like it will fall to Arthur, Gawain, and the kings nephew, volunteers. He takes the green axe and neatly and completely slices off the head of the green giant. The intruder walks over to where his head had fallen, picks it up and it announces that he is the knight of the Green Chapel and that is where Sir Gawain should seek him in a year and day to receive his return blow. He then remounts his horse and, carrying his head, rides away. For the rest of the year Gawain dallies. He wants to ride out in search of the Green Knight, but Arthur keeps him close to court out of love. Spring become fall and Gawain finally sets out. In the course of his journey he meets several different types of people: A peasant wife, a knight guarding a ford and a wild man of the woods. None of them have ever heard of a place called the Green Chapel. Finally, just before Christmas, he finds himself before a great castle. He is welcomed and made much of as a famous knight from a great court. He is told that the Green Chapel is very nearby. His host proposes a game. Gawain should rest until New Years Day, when he must keep his appointment. In that time he would exchange whatever he won around the castle with the lord of the castle for whatever he got in the course of a days hunting. Each morning for the next three days, when Gawain awakes, the lady of the castle is in his room. She throws herself at him, asking for lessons in love. Gawain is honorable, and does not give in. He does accept kisses from her. Meanwhile her husband is hunting, first deer, then a boar, then a fox. Each evening Gawain gives the host kisses in return for his hunting prizes. On the final morning Gawain weakens. While he doesnt give in to the ladys demands for love he does accept a gift from her, a green belt, that she tells him will keep him from being wounded in any way. When that nights exchange takes place, Gawain doesnt mention this prize. Finally, Gawain sets out for the Green Chapel. It is a cold and gray day. The page sent along to guide tries to scare him off, but Gawain goes on alone. He descends into the valley where the Green Chapel is said to be but doesnt see anything. Eventually he hears the sound of a sharpening wheel. Then the Green Knight makes himself known, vaulting down to the valley floor on the haft of a new axe. Gawain, true to his word, opens his collar and offers his neck to the giant. The knight takes his swing, but Gawain flinches. The giant tries again, but it is a feint. Finally a third blow comes, which nicks Gawains neck, causing just a scratch. Gawain leaps back, ready to fight, but the Green Knight just stands laughing at him. The Green Knight then reveals himself as the lord of the castle that had harbored Gawain. He had been changed into this form by Gawai

Contains stories from the age of chivalry, knights and holy quests.

"From renowned comedy journalist and historian Kliph Nesteroff comes the underappreciated story of Native Americans and comedy"--

“A lively popular history of an oft-overlooked element in the development of human society” (Library Journal)—walls—and a haunting and eye-opening saga that reveals a startling link between what we build and how we live. With esteemed historian David Frye as our raconteur-guide in Walls, which Publishers Weekly praises as “informative, relevant, and thought-provoking,” we journey back to a time before barriers of brick and stone even existed—to an era in which nomadic tribes vied for scarce resources, and each man was bred to a life of struggle. Ultimately, those same men would create edifices of mud, brick, and stone, and with them effectively divide humanity: on one side were those the walls protected; on the other, those the walls kept out. The stars of this narrative are the walls themselves—rising up in places as ancient and exotic as Mesopotamia, Babylon, Greece, China, Rome, Mongolia, Afghanistan, the lower Mississippi, and even Central America. As we journey across time and place, we discover a hidden, thousand-mile-long wall in Asia's steppes; learn of bizarre Spartan rituals; watch Mongol chieftains lead their miles-long hordes; witness the epic siege of Constantinople; chill at the fate of French explorers; marvel at the folly of the Maginot Line; tense at the gathering crisis in Cold War Berlin; gape at Hollywood’s gated royalty; and contemplate the wall mania of our own era. Hailed by Kirkus Reviews as “provocative, well-written, and—with walls rising everywhere on the planet—timely,” Walls gradually reveals the startling ways that barriers have affected our psyches. The questions this book summons are both intriguing and profound: Did walls make civilization possible? And can we live without them? Find out in this masterpiece of historical recovery and preeminent storytelling.

Originally published in 1965, A Reading of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an interpretation of the most important poem in Middle English literature, the only fourteenth century work which can stand beside Chaucer. The book examines the poem’s conventions and purposes in a critical analysis and provides a useful and insightful introduction to ‘Sir Gawain’. It will be of interest to students and academics studying the poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

The inspiration for the major motion picture The Green Knight starring Dev Patel, an early English poem of magic, chivalry and seduction. Composed during the fourteenth century in the English Midlands, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the events that follow when a mysterious green-coloured knight rides into King Arthur's Camelot in deep mid-winter. The mighty knight presents a challenge to the court: he will allow himself to be struck by one blow, on the condition that he will be allowed to return the strike on the following New Year's Eve. Sir Gawain takes up the challenge, decapitating the stranger - only to see the Green Knight seize up his own severed head and ride away, leaving Gawain to seek him out and honour their pact. Blending Celtic myth and Christian faith, Gawain is among the greatest Middle English poems: a tale of magic, chivalry and seduction.