After about fifty years I'm finally achieving an ambition: I'm taking a group of people around the Gawain landscape in the Leek Moorlands and retelling the story. Any readers of my previous posts will know my passion/obsession with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (hereafter known as SGGK), a fourteenth century alliterative poem. I came upon it after reading a guide book to the Peak District which mentioned the possibility that the hunt scenes may have been inspired by the topography to the north of the Roaches. On borrowing it from a bemused English teacher (I had already dropped English Literature as an exam subject), I was plunged into a world of chivalry, sexy posh frocks, armour, quests and challenges, seduction, and a hero young enough to be an elder brother. The biggest problem was the language. It was the Tolkien edited version and it looked like this:
I'd been born and bred in North Staffordshire and was used to the heavy dialect of the old folks. "You need to descend the hill." was delivered as: "Goo dinet' bonk!" Amidst much amusement from my family I took to reading it out aloud as best I could. It was much easier. I later found that Alan Garner found the same facility: he was raised in the next town.
The real joy came when I matched the descriptions to the landscape I knew so well from my walking and rock climbing. Not only did the general features such as those so vividly described in the above passage seem very real, but specific locations like Ludchurch, the Back Dane and the moors to the north of the Roaches were totally recognisable.
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| "They climbed by cliffs where the cold clung" |
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| "Mist clothed the moor and melted on the mountains" |
As the story unfolded I was as entranced by the descriptions of the minutiae of court life, dress and food as I was with the landscape. The fact that it was the hardest reading task I'd ever undertaken somehow made it mine. I became, and still am, evangelical about the craftsmanship of the poem as well as the messages within it about what it is to be human. So, what am I saying? Simply that in an age of instant texts, of a seemingly endless series of transliterations, to go back to the original (as near as we can get) version is a worthwhile enterprise. Perhaps, too, the work involved in fully appreciating a piece of work whether it's art, a building, music, sculpture or literature is a necessary part of its appreciation.
What has galled me over the last forty or so years is the reluctance of the locale to own SGGK. It's a bit like Stratford without Shakespeare. Yes, the author is anonymous and no-one will ever know for certain whether he lived around Leek, but the landscapes speak for themselves. And if you doubt me do a winter walk from Hen Cloud to Ludchurch, stopping for a well earned flask of coffee at Roach End where Gawain's guide leaves him to descend into the valley of the Back Dane to meet his fate. Then read the last quarter of the poem preferably in the original, Simon Armitage's retelling or in one of the many transliterations available on line.
