Snow and Mist in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight". Portents of the Otherworld?

Author(s): Martin Puhvel

Source: Folklore, Vol. 89, No. 2 (1978), pp. 224-228
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260130
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Snow and Mist in Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight
Portents of the Otherworld ?

MARTIN PUHVEL

G AWAIN'S last night at the castle of his hospitable host in Sir Gawain
and the GreenKnight is marked by a violent snowstorm that presumably
further harries the already troubled mind of the sleepless hero:

Bot wylde wederez of he worlde waknedheroute,

Clowdes kesten kenly be colde to be erfe,
Wyth nyse innoghe of he norbe, ke naked to tene;
De snawe snitered ful snart, bat snayped be wylde;
De werbelandewynde wapped fro be hy3e,
And drof vche dale ful of dryftes ful grete.
De leude lystened ful wel bat le3 in his bedde,
Da3he lowkez his liddez, ful lyttel he slepes;
Bi vch kok bat crue he knwe wel be steuen.'

This turbulence of the weather may well seem to effectively and

dramatically correspond to, or even reflect, the restless, perturbed state of
mind of the hero, preparing as he is to face the dread axe-stroke of his mys-
terious challenger. The storm is of course by no means a mere artistic exten-
sion of this state; on the contrary, the main idea conveyed-if largely left
to the listener's or reader's imagination-is that of the impact the atmo-
spheric turmoil must have on the psyche of the knight. From contemplating
this it is not a long step to wondering whether the rage of the elements on
the night preceding the inexorably approaching day of crisis is to be seen-
within the plot of the poem-as sheer coincidence or whether it has some
intended role within the scheme of things.
From such wonder one may logically progress to conceiving the idea that
Gawain may be undergoing a further dimension of the test of courage that
started in Arthur's hall at Camelot with the Green Knight's challenge and
Gawain's interposing with the King to solicit the beheading game for him-
self. Certainly a violent storm.during a largely sleepless night is not con-
ducive to calming taut nerves. The question that would then logically pose
itself is whether the turbulent weather, rather than being an accidental part
of the test of courage--or perhaps ordained by God-may not be intended
to be perceived as being precipitated by the immediate agency of Sir
Gawain's tester or his possible cohorts.
SNOW AND MIST IN SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN NIGHT 225

While not everybody among the first-time audience or readers of the

romance is at this stage of the poem likely to divine a connection between
Gawain's host and the Green Knight, everybody knows that the hero is
about to encounter his gigantic green challenger-tester, who was at Camelot
apparently perceived to be an 'aluisch mon'.2 Hence it may not be invalid
at this point for the audience or reader to conceive the suspicion that if the
snowstorm is precipitated as part of the protracted process of testing the
hero's courage, fairy magic may very well lie behind it. Fairies are namely
in medieval, and subsequent, popular and literary tradition notorious for
their ability to influence weather, not least to unleash storms, including bliz-
zards. Porphyro's phrase in Keats' 'The Eve of St Agnes', 'Hark! 'tis an
elfin storm from faery land', reflects genuine, ancient tradition, apparently
with deep roots in Celtic fairy lore.3 In medieval legend such magic storms
are particularly apt to overtake heroes on their way to the Otherworld. Thus
when in the very ancient Irish tale CompertCon-Culainn ('The Conception
of Cuchulain') Conchobar, Conall, and Bricriu are on their way to the dwell-
ing of the fairy monarch Lug, 'there fell a great snow upon them'.4 In the
twelfth century Acallam na Senbrach ('Colloquy of the Ancient Men'),
Finn and his men, again, encounter a snowstorm on their way to a sid of
the Tuatha De Danann: 'Heavy snow poured down now, making of the
forest's branches as it were a withe-twist; the greatness of the foul weather
and of the storm that came robbed us of our lustihood and resourcefulness.' 5
In The Turkeand Gowin, an English romance of about 1500 from the north
or northwest, a violent storm rages before the otherwordly dwelling of the
Turke, to which he takes Sir Gawain:
He led Sir Gawaineto a hill so plaine;
the earth opened and closed againe,
then Gawaine was adread;
the merke was comen & the light is gone;
thundering, lightning, snow & raine,
thereof enough they had.6

In the ancient Irish tale The Death of Muirchertach mac Erca this king
of Erin falls under the sway of the fatal charms of 'a damsel with a green
mantle about her' who gives her name as Sin--'Storm'--clearly a lady of
fairy nature. She brings about the King's death through her magic devices,
which include a violent snowstorm:
When the hosts were intoxicated there comes the sigh of a great wind ... After
that she caused a great snowstormthere; and never had come a noise of battle
that was greaterthan the shower of thick snow that poured there at that time,
and from the northwestprecisely it came.7

It would thus seem far from unlikely that the exceptionally heavy snow-
storm that rages during Gawain's last night at Hautdesert represents a reflec-
tion of the tradition of the elfin storm, often encountered by a hero on his
way to the Otherworld;8 here it occurs just prior to Gawain's departure
for the meeting with his 'aluisch' adversary, a variation not surprising in
226 MARTINPUHVEL

the case of an echo-and, as seen in the last-cited instance, fairy snow is

even in Celtic lore not always featured in the context of approach to the
Otherworld. It may be a question of a source-relic or an element introduced
by the poet; in either case the storm may be intended to be perceived by
the audience as part of the testing of Sir Gawain by magic of the fairy kind.9
What Gawain does, on the other hand, encounter in the very course of
his passage following the turbulent night is clouds of mist:
De heuen watz vphalt, bot vgly her-vnder;
Mist muged on ]e mor, malt on ]e mountez,
Vch hille hade a hatte, a myst-hakelhuge.'I
This may well recall the apparently magic mist that in medieval Celtic
tradition not infrequently attends the passage to the Otherworld, a motif
not improbably related to that of the magic storm. Thus in the ancient Irish
Echtrae Cormaic ('The Voyage of Cormac') the hero and his men pass
through a mist to reach the palace of Manannan:
A greatmist was broughtupon them in the midst of the plain of the wall. Cormac
found himself on a great plain alone. There was a large fortressin the midst of
the plain with a wall of bronze around it. In the fortress was a house of white
silver and it was half-thatchedwith the wings of white birds. A faery host of
horsemen was haunting the house."I
In The Feast ofBricriu, again, Loegaire, Conall, and Cuchulain encounter,
on their way to the castle of Curoi-a place of manifest Otherworld charac-
ter-in turn a 'dim, dark, heavy mist', also described as 'a hideous, black,
dark cloud' and 'druidical mist'.I2
In the Lanzelet of Ulrich von Zatzikhoven voyagers to the castle of Mal-
duc, a rather otherworldly domain, encounter outside it a mist almost
impenetrable to the eye.3
The powers of fairy are in Celtic tradition apparently able to create such
mist at will. Already the Tuatha De Danann landed in Ireland shrouded
by a cloud of magic mist,'4 and they used a similar device to try to foil
the invasion of the Milesians.'5
There is, of course, no direct indication that the profuse mist over the
moors and mountains along Gawain's passage towards his appointment with
his otherworldly-seeming challenger in the latter's domain is of magic origin;
the account of it may seem quite natural and realistic, even if the description
of hills having hats and cloaks of mist may convey an ominous mental image
of giants-and the hero is riding to a critical encounter with a creature who
seemed 'half etayn'.'6 Yet an echo of the motif of the magic mist of Celtic
lore may well seem present, 7 especially if viewed in conjunction with the
preceding snowstorm.'" So it may, anyhow, have seemed to a contemporary
audience familiar with such elements of fairy lore influenced by Celtic tradi-
tion and sensitive to traits of the Otherworld and the approaches to it;'9
it should be remembered that the poem was apparently written in an area
adjacent to Wales. It may also be well to note that the setting of Gawain's
testing exhibits Otherworld traits; the 'grene chapel', the hollow green
SNOW AND MIST IN SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN NIGHT 227

mound, cannot, it has long been recognized, but evoke associations with
a sid and the stream bubbling beside it easily recalls those that so often in
medieval romance border fairyland.20 The picture is somewhat confused in
that while the territory beyond the stream whence the menacing challenger
comes could be seen as the Otherworld, the sid-like mound is on the opposite
bank. The entire scene need, of course, not be expected to be clear and con-
sistent in its otherworldly lay-out; it should not be surprising if only disjecta
membraof the fairyland concept are exhibited.2I
Nor is it clear whether such elements are accidental survivals of a source
or earlier version or whether the author purposefully employs them-be they
old or new-in the interests of a pattern of suspense and wonder involving
the apparent, if elusive, recognition of the supernatural by the audience.
What with the extremely subtle craftsmanship of the work increasingly
recognized by Sir Gawain scholarship, the latter possibility seems, however,
the more plausible.

NOTES
1. Ll. 2000-08. 'But wild stormsarosein the world outside. Clouds cast piercinglythe
cold to the ground,with exceedingbitternessfromthe north,to afflictthe ill-clad; the snow
cameshiveringdownandcruellynippedthe wild creatures;the shrillyblowingwind rushed
from the heights and drove each valley full of very great snowdrifts.The knight listened
closely, lying in his bed; though he shuts his eyelids, he sleeps very little; each crowing
of the cock recalledto him his appointment.'
2. 'elvish man', 1. 681.
3. It may be noted, by way of parallelism,that in folklore, witches, trolls, devils, and
yet other uncannycreatures,are also often credited with the ability to influenceweather.
4. Ernst Windisch (ed.), Irische Texte(Leipzig, 1880), p. 137.
5. Standish H. O'Grady, Silva Gadelica,II (London, 1892), p. 222.
6. Bishop'Percy's Folio Manuscript, Ballads and Romances, ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furni-
vall, Vol. I (London, 1868), p. 93.
7. Revue Celtique,XXIII (1902), p. 419.
8. The storm overtakingthe travellerto the Otherworldis, as indicated above, by no
meansalwaysa snowstorm.At times it is a questionof a wind-, rain-, or hail-storm,some-
times accompaniedby thunder, as, for example, in Chretien's Yvain(1. 439ff.). A. C. L.
Brown suggests that the passage through the magic storm 'seems to be another form of
the motif of a dive throughthe waterof a springor lakewhich in many Irish stories,notably
the folk-taleIn Gilla Decair, is the mode of entranceto the Other World.' ('Independent
Characterof the Welsh Owain', The RomanticReview,III (1912), pp. 171n.)
A strikingexampleof the survivalof the motifof the elfinstormin relativelyrecentfolklore
is provided by the turn-of-the-centuryrecord of an Irish folktale, where the retrieve of
a fairy-changelingby the fairy host is accompaniedby a violent storm:
In the darknessof the black midnight, a powerfulgreat storm shook the place. It was
like as if the four winds of heaven were striving together, and they horrid vexed with
one another.There were strangenoises in it, too, music and shouting, the way it was
easy knowing the Good People were out playing themselves, or maybe disputing in a
war.
('Nallagh's Child', BamptonHunt, Folk Talesof Breffny(London, 1912), pp. 71f.)
9. It should be noted that the storm seems to be coming from the north, a traditional
directionof the Otherworld.
10. Ll. 2079-81. 'The sky was high but it was threateningbelow it. Mist drizzled on
the moor, melted on the mountains;each hill had a hat, a huge cloak of mist.'
11. The Irish Ordeals, Cormac's Adventure in the Land of Promise, and the Decision as
to Cormac's Sword; Windisch, Irische Texte, 3rd Series, I (Leipzig, 1891), p. 213.
12. Fled Bricrend; The Feast of Bricriu, tr. George Henderson; Irish Texts
Society,
Vol. II (Dublin, 1899), p. 87.
228 MARTIN PUHVEL

13. Lanzelet,ed. K. A. Hahn (Berlin, 1965), p. 177 (1. 7589f.).

14. See CharlesSquire, CelticMyth and Legend(London, 1912), p. 72.
15. See J. A. MacCulloch,CelticMythology;TheMythologyof All Races,Vol. III (New
York, 1964), p. 43.
16. 'half giant', 1. 140.
17. In view of the generallyrecognizeddistantconnectionof Sir Gawainwith TheFeast
of Bricriu,one may comparethe descriptionof the mist in the latter as 'a hideous, black,
darkcloud'withthe statementin the formerthat 'fe heuen watzvphalt,bot vgly Ier-vnder'
(1. 2079), even if vgly is here generallyinterpretedto mean 'threatening'.
18. It may be noted that in the ancient Welsh Manawyddan,Son of Llyr both thunder
and a fall of mist precedethe disappearanceof Pryderiand Rhiannoninto the Otherworld
together with the fairy castle they have entered (see The Mabinogion,trans. Gwyn Jones
and Thomas Jones (London, 1949), p. 47).
19. MotherAngelaCarson,whobelievesthe castleof Bertilakto be an Otherworlddwell-
ing, statesthat 'when Gawainleft the castleof the hospitableBertilakand crossedthe draw-
bridge,he departedfrom the Other Worldand travelledfor a time in the land of mortals,
returningthrough the same mist and desolationthrough which he had come.' ('Morgain
la Fe'eas the Principleof Unity in Gawainand the GreenKnight', MLQ, XXIII (1962),
p. 13. While, like myself, she appreciatesthe possible otherworldlyimplicationsof the
vividlydescribedmist, the observationis not quiteaccurate,in that nowhereis the landscape
Gawainpasses throughon his way to the castle said to be misty, even if one may imagine
the misy and myre'marshand swamp' (1. 749) he rides through on ChristmasEve to be
such.
20. Not uninterestingin this connectionis the suggestion, initially advancedby Mabel
Day ('Introductionto Sir Gawainand the GreenKnight',EETS 210, ed. Israel Gollancz
(London, 1940), p. xx) and developed and articulatedin closer detail by Robert Kaske
('Gawain'sGreen Chapeland the Cave at Wetton Mill', MedievalLiteratureand Folklore
Studies,ed. Jerome Mandel and Bruce A. Rosenburg(New Brunswick,N.J., 1972), pp.
11lff.) that the Gawain-poetmay have had a geographicmodel in mind for the setting of
the hero's climactic meeting with his antagonist, viz., the surroundingsof two caves
separatedby a rapid-flowingstream,the tiny riverManifold,at WettonMill, Staffordshire.
Having visitedthe site, I must admitthat the case for such associationseems ratherintrigu-
ing. A short distance from the stream a rugged knoll, overgrownwith grass and weeds
and with a crevace-like,rock-strewncave about thirty feet long extending most of the way
through it, tops a rathersteep slope, separatedfrom the stream only by a narrowgravel
road. The knoll is faced at a distance of about three hundred yards across the stream by
a forbidding-lookingfissure-likehole leading into a deep, narrowcavern in the towering
rock knownas Ossom'sCragtoppinga steep hillside.Here, then, the 'GreenChapel'would
be facingthe hole in the rockwhencethe Green Knight so dramaticallyemerges.An attempt
by the poet to infuse the legend with some auraof geographicreality,perhapslocal colour,
is not out of the question in this connection, especiallyif these mysterious-lookingcaves
were,as is not difficultfor a modern beholderto believe, in the popularmind of the poet's
day surroundedwith fairy association.
21. It may not be in the poet's best artisticintereststo make the otherworldlypicture
very explicit. After all, at the end of the poem the carefully-nurturedsuspicion of fairy
involvementis, at least on the surface, debunked; the 'aluisch' Green Knight turns out
to be the gregariouscountry squire Bertilak,endowed with what magic he possesses by
Morgain la Fee, herself not representedas a supernaturalcreaturebut as Gawain'saunt
steepedin the artsof Merlin. Thus at the end the audienceis left freeto think, in retrospect,
thatthe snowstorm,andperhapsthe mist as well,could wellhavebeenthe workof Morgain's
magic, if there was anythingpreternaturalat all about them.