A Knight of God or the Godess?:
Rethinking Religious Syncretism in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

By Larissa Tracy

Since its first modern publication in 1839, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has been interpreted as a purely Christian poem, one that embodies the rational virtues of Christian chivalry and righteousness or penitential doctrine. A poem in which the evil sorceress, or reformer of sexual immorality, orchestrates an evil plot to test the renown and reputation of Arthur’s court and, if she’s lucky, kill her archrival Guinevere. But over the years, scholars have illuminated the multi-faceted nature of medieval society, demonstrating that medieval literature does not necessarily fit into a dominant Christian mold from which all other religious traditions were erased. Based on recent scholarship about the persistent existence of medieval paganism and more enhanced readings of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it is my suggestion that the poem is not an reaffirmation of Christianity, nor a tool of conversion, but a poem of religious synthesis in which paganism is presented as a parallel to Christianity, not wholly appropriated or obliterated. The depiction of Morgan le Fay is crucial in determining the use of the pentangle as a symbol of synthesis – where the rational mind and soul are not only attributed to Christianity, but also to paganism and non-Christian ideologies. Taken in its context of the Green Knight, the extensive discourse on the natural world, and the portrayal of the tripartite goddess in Morgan le Fay, the pentangle becomes a pagan symbol to which Christian values and virtues have been applied. In its points and lines the traditions intertwine forming an “endless knotte” of religious synthesis.