flowers come forth, meadows and groves are clad in green, the birds make ready to build, and sing sweetly for solace of the soft summer that follows thereafter… The blossoms bud and blow in the hedgerows rich and rank, and noble notes enough are heard in the fair woods.“ Strangely the poet is silent about what happens when the sun reaches its peak at Midsummer – perhaps because in ancient days, unspeakable things happened at that time, which might included human sacrifice (as will be seen below). After Midsummer, the year turns, “harvest comes and hardens the grain, warning it to wax ripe ere the winter… The drought drives the dust on high, flying over the face of the land.” Autumn comes, and “the angry wind of the welkin (=sky) wrestles with the sun; the leaves fall from the trees and light upon the ground, and all brown are the groves that but now were green, and ripe is the fruit that once was flower.” This description of the dying of the year fits the closing circle of the sun’s travels. That is the time when people begin to wait for the darkening of winter.
At Michaelmas (29 September), with the onset of autumn gloom, Sir Gawain begins to think about his coming journey. On the Day of All Saints, after the Autumn Equinox, in a mournful mood in expectation of his coming execution, Sir Gawin sets on his adventurous way to look for the Green Chapel and the Green Knight. By Christmas Eve, he arrives at the beautiful castle surrounded by a green park, where begins the next stage of his adventures.
IV. The Figure of the Goddess
The Goddess is the one who rules life and death and all things of Nature, including the seasonal course of the sun through the year. The three women in