Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady

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·         Title:  Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady

·         Author:  Selina Hastings

·         Illustrator:  Juan Wijngaard

·         Publisher:  Mulberry Books, Ltd.

·         Copyright:  1985

·         ISBN #:  0-688-07046-9

·         Genre:  Arthurian Romances

·         Library Location:  The Canyon Area Library

·         Summary:

King Arthur and his court moved to the castle of Carlisle for Christmas and Arthur had gotten lost while hunting with his knights.  While he was trying to figure out where he was, he noticed a black night watching him.  The knight challenged him and before accepting Arthur realized that Excalibur was back in Camelot and that he could not win this fight.  The knight told Arthur to come back to that spot in three days time with the answer to the riddle “What is it that women most desire” he would spare Arthur’s life.  After spending three days pondering the question and asking every woman in his court for the answer and getting a different one from everyone he went back to see the knight knowing that he would die.  On his way to see the knight he came across the most hideous hag who offered him the answer, their own way, in exchange for one of his knights to marry.  After giving the answer to the knight he returned to the castle where Gawain offered to marry the hag.  No one was happy at the wedding the next night and once the celebration was over Gawain did not know what to do when reaching the honeymoon sweat.  All at once Gawain realized that the hag had turned into the most beautiful woman who said she was under a spell and that if he could answer her question correctly than she would be freed. Her question was would he rather have her ugly in the day and pretty at night or pretty during the day or ugly at night.  He gave her what every woman wanted, her choice, and the spell was broken.

·         Personal Comments:

This was a fun story; it is nice to read a story about one of King Arthur’s knights and not just about King Arthur himself.  It also teaches some great morals and values as well, everyone was mean to this woman but Gawain and Guinevere were extremely nice and never even shuddered at her appearance.  Gawain was ultimately rewarded for his gallantry and Guinevere even gained a new member of court and another friend.  There were so many Knights of the Round Table and their job was basically to go out and have adventures and I’m glad to see that some of those adventures were written about.

·         Suggested Use in Classroom:

We read about all of the Knights of the Round Table in school while studying Arthurian legend, but for most of us the only story that we read about the knights is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  There are so many more stories about the knights and their journeys that it would be a great idea to incorporate them into lectures about King Arthur.  A classroom use for this book would be for the students to find and read at least two other book about the Knights of the Round Table and to summarize those stories for the rest of the class.  They could even be asked to create a presentation like a Power Point, but they would be asked to not use a story about Gawain and to have both stories be about different knights.