Notes on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

by
Christopher W. Dodson

English 417.001 (Honors)

Dr. Paula M. von Loewenfeldt
University of Southern Indiana
December 16, 2013

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Table of Contents

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Lines 763 784, with translation.3
A Brief Note on the Poet and His Language...................................................................................5
Selected Explications From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight......................................................7
Glossary.........................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................26

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Lines 763 - 784
Translation by Larry D. Benson

Nade he sayned hymself, segge, bot rye,

He had not signed himself, that stalwart, but thrice,
Er he wat war in e wod of a won in a mote,
Ere he was aware in the wood of a dwelling within a moat,
Abof a launde, on a lawe, loken vnder boe
Above an open lawn, on a low hill, locked under boughs

765

Of mony borelych bole aboute bi e diches:

By many burly branches about by the ditches:
A castel e comlokest at euer knyt ate,
A castle the comeliest that ever knight commanded,
Pyched on a prayere, a park al aboute,
Placed on an open meadow, a park all around,
With a pyked palays pyned ful ik,
With a spiked palisade penned in full thick,
at vmbetee mony tre mo en two myle.
That enclosed many trees more than two miles.

770

at holde on at on syde e hael auysed,

That hold on that one side the horseman observed,
As hit schemered and schon ur e schyre oke;
As it shimmered and shone through sheltering oaks;
enne hat he hendly of his helme, and hely he onke
Then courteously he doffs his helmet, and holily he thanks
Jesus and Sayn Gilyan, at gentyle ar boe,
Jesus and Saint Julian, that gentle are both,
at cortaysly had hym kydde, and his cry herkened.
Who courteously recognized him, and his cry hearkened.

775

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Now bone hostel, coe e burne, I beseche yow ette!

Now for good lodging, quoth the brave, I beseech you yet!
enne gerde he to Gryngolet with e gilt hele,
Then he gives spur to Gringolet with the gilded heels,
And he ful chauncely hat chosen to e chef gate,
And he fully by chance has chosen the chief path,
at brot bremly e burne to e bryge ende
Quickly brought the brave to the bridges end
In haste.
In haste.
e bryge wat breme vpbrayde,
The bridge was firmly raised,
e ate wer stoken faste.
The gates were shut up fast.
e walle were wel arayed,
The walls were mightily made;
Hit dut no wynde blaste.
They feared no windy blast.

780

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A Brief Note on the Poet and His Language

I began this project expecting little more than a word study. That didnt bother me. Im a
rhetoric and composition student; I like etymology, semantics, taking words apart and
discovering how the bits and pieces fit together. But not long after I began, I discovered that
there was much more to be found here than mere lexical history. The meaning of a word may be
arbitrary, but everywhere I looked I was finding patterns, individual evolutions of word and
meaning both that added up to something more than the sum of their parts.
We dont know much about the Gawain poet, not even his name. But all the same, we
can make a few suppositions about his writing. There seems to be a trend to simplicity
throughout the work. Simple spellings are selected in lieu of the complex, as in nade (line 763)
instead of nawjght, or sayned (line 763) for signed. He makes thorough use of thorn (), and
even yogh () in all its various positions. But, at the same time, he displays an awareness of how
language can be manipulated to suit his purposes. His almost Shakespearean reassigning of
meaning in burne (line 776) and dut (line 784) indicates that, however much his language might
have been influenced by dialect and convention, every word was penned with conscious purpose.
That purpose, once recognized, can be traced through the content of the poem just as
easily as through its etymology. In the beginning of the selected stanza, Gawain is emerging
from his trek through the Welsh wilderness to catch his first sight of Bertilacs castle. The trip
has been a hard one, the kind of journey that wears the knight down to a sort of desperate
essence.
The words the poet uses in the first half of the stanza are almost entirely English in
origin. The landscape, and Gawain himself, are described with ancient and simplified

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terminology. It is not until he comes upon the first signs of the castle that the language
modernizes. Throughout the stanza there is a steady growth from English to French, but there is
also a growth in Gawain himself. The knight wanders the forest as a mere segge (line 763,
man). The sight of the castle reminds him that he is a knyt (line 767, knight). Upon
observing the majesty of its grounds he becomes a hael (line 771, noble man). And finally,
regaining a sense of his journeys purpose, he spurs his warhorse forward as a burne (line 776,
soldier). Bertilacs castle undergoes a similar development. It begins as a won (line 764,
simple dwelling), turns into a castel (line 767, castle) with the addition of a hill and moat,
and by the end of the stanza it is shimmering and shining through the trees.
Throughout the whole, there is a recognition by the poet of the history of his speech. He
writes of times past in a language that is passing. And yet, there is a kind of satisfaction in the
knowledge that things buried are not always things forgotten. The past makes ripples in the
present. The past matters.
I came away from this project with little more than a word study, but those words proved
to be much more active, much more powerful, than I had imagined they would be. Like Gawain,
the English language is thickly layered, each level developing instead of replacing the layers
beneath it. Like Bertilacs castle perched atop his lawe (line 765, burial mound), it is an
always-modern language built tall atop the bones of its own history, shimmering through the
trees.

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Selected Explications From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

The following are words of particular note, either etymologically or due to their usage in
the poem. Words are listed in order of their appearance in the poem.

nade (line 763) naught

Finding its origins directly from OE, the word here is in the last throes of a brief flirtation
with a final e, which would disappear in the fifteenth century. It is a fairly large reduction
from its roots in the OE nawuht. It went through several iterations in early ME, where the
second syllable was slowly subsumed into guttural consonants (nawjght), until it collapsed
altogether. The poets use of nade is here closer to Kentish nate than to more common northern
uses, such as neawt.

sayned (line 763) signed, (as in making the sign of the cross)
We see here the first word of French origin, from signier. The spelling seems to be
unique to this poet. It tends to follow his usual trends (use of d for t when possible, an
avoidance of complex consonant clusters), though it may be interesting to note that, as Gawain is
still emerging from the Welsh wilderness, the poet has erased all trace of French spelling from an
unavoidably French expression.

segge (line 763) man

Directly from OE seg, with roots in Saxon segg. The poet shows a tendency throughout
to substitute words for Gawain that demonstrate some trait or property of the knight. But here,
after his wandering through unpopulated country (Through many a morass and mire, a man all

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alone, line 749) and immediately following a desperate prayer (Cross of Christ me lead, line
762), this typically simple and monosyllabic OE word carries a particular impact we see
Gawain stripped down to his bare essence.

won (line 764) (loosely) a dwelling

This appears to be a noun variation of the ME verb won, from OE wunian. The verb
means something like to dwell, to abide. We can still see the adjectival form (from gewunian)
in the more modern word wont (i.e. It was his wont to). Here the noun form is used for
Bertilacs dwelling, before Gawain can fully identify it. Like the use of segge (line 763) for
Gawain himself, Bertilacs dwelling is given as bare a word as possible with the OE, little more
than a den made for a man, as if Bertilac were merely one more denizen of the wild Welsh forest.

mote (line 764) moat

A defensive fortification, and the first indication that Bertilacs dwelling is more than a
mere living space, is given to us with a French word. But even in this sense, we have not
entirely left English behind. The French motte meant simply mound, hillock, castle-hill. We
find shortly that Gawain must cross a bridge to reach Bertilacs castle, telling us that mote is
closer to our modern conception. The use of mote for a ditch, whether empty, spiked, or
drowned, is a uniquely British development from the late twelfth century.

launde (line 765) lawn

A directly Old French word, even with identical spelling, though not quite with the
gentrified modern meaning (OE launde came from French lande, meaning wooded ground). It

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may not find its origins in Old French, though, as there are parallels in Irish lann, Welsh llan,
and Breton lann. Also a possible origin for Modern English land.

lawe (line 765) hill

An OE word, and the poets variant of the word low. This particular spelling was used in
northern England and southern Scotland to denote a seemingly natural hill, as opposed to manmade. A curious choice, after having begun to describe Bertilacs castle in progressively more
civilized terms. But note that this is not a term used to describe the castle itself, rather the
structure atop which it is built. No matter what foreign or modern influences come to Britain,
they cannot remove the ancient foundation, only build atop them.
The more typical use of the word (spelled low), indicates not a natural hill, but
something akin to a burial-mound. Unlike beorg (barrow), which described the grave sites of
older civilizations, low was the Anglo-Saxons term for their own burial mounds. There are deep
associations with this word, overtones of paganism and possession.

boe (line 765) boughs

The plural of OE bg, from the High German buog, meaning shoulder or foreleg.
The word is the root of bow, as in the fore of a ship, though that usage comes to English by way
of Scandinavian. The usage of the word for a thick branch (a foreleg of a tree) is exclusive to
English. The word does not appear to have any association with the verb bow (to bend).
We see here how the original g is transcribed as a medial yogh, a ME development.
Other variants contemporary to the Gawain poets usage retain the g, while still others are
already beginning to drop the consonant altogether (bouh, bohu). Our modern spelling is

Dodson 10

adopted by the following century. Though the modern pronunciation has confirmed the absence
of the final consonant, it is an interesting note that evidence of it (-gh) still remains in the
orthography.

borelych (line 766) burly

Usually associated with High German burlch, meaning exalted, lofty, stately. The
origins of the term are uncertain, and cannot be conclusively traced through OE. The modern
spelling was originally only a northern variant. The word was normally used as a kind of value
judgment when speaking of objects, an adjective denoting excellence or nobility. The modern
definition of thickness and strength probably comes from a particularly specific usage of the
word: when it was used to describe a spear, it referred to the stoutness of the weapons haft.

aboute (line 766) about

From OE onbuton. The original meaning was indicative of multiple direction; to and fro,
up and down, here and there, in a circuitous course. This last is probably intended by the poet, as
the word is likely referencing either the trees or the ditches that surround the bare hill of Castle
Bertilac. ME variants typically shifted the initial o to a, though they were more selective in
deciding whether or not to retain the final inflection, which probably accounts for the modern
spelling (a-bout). The Gawain poet seems to be using a variant that demonstrates this change in
mid-progress. The final inflection may be functionally missing from his spelling, but one
wonders if his final e may still have been pronounced as a sort of phonetic memory of the lost
morpheme.

Dodson 11

diches (line 766) diches

The plural of dich, from OE dc, the word hasnt changed much. The change in the final
position is a northern variant. We might have expected one form to have become dominant over
the other, but both have survived in the modern ditch and dyke, which indicate different
parts of the same structure (the cavity and embankment, respectively).

castel (line 767) castle

From Old French, the word spread from the Norman invasion. But this was in fact a
reintroduction of the term. It was present earlier (castel, meaning village) from Latin
castellum, or town, which was itself a diminutive of castrum, or fort. Though the poets
usage is almost certainly from the French, we can see echoes of the Latin meaning. The Roman
towns were built surrounding walled hill forts to which the people could flee for protection, and
we see here the sense that Bertilacs castle is likewise an island of civilization that is under threat
from the encompassing wilderness.
It is also interesting to note that the Gawain poet writes in the Cheshire dialect. Cheshire
is recorded in the Doomsday Book as Cestrescir, or Chester-shire. Chester derives from OE
cster, which likely comes from Latin castra, the plural neuter of castrum. The Gawain poet
himself was writing from a castle on the edge off the Welsh wilderness.

ate (line 767) ought

From the OE ahte, a word that underwent extreme variation in the medial position (agte,
aichte, ahut, awghtte). The ME variants had already begun the shift of the initial a to o,

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though we see the Gawain poet retain the older vowel. The term is originally the past-tense of
the verb owe, a sense that lasted throughout the ME period.
The word is used here in a curious way: a castle the comeliest that ever a knight ought
(line 767). The key to deciphering the usage is found in the terms relation to owe. There is a
ME usage of ate that means something like took, or gained possession of. The poet may be
using the word in the sense that Gawain took Bertilacs castle in the same way that we still say
a person gains a hill in the climbing of it. Or, on a more intriguing track, we might take
knight as referring to the castles owner. Perhaps Bertilac himself is not the original master of
the castle, but rather took it as a spoil of some sort.

palays (line 769) palisade

From the Norman palis or paleiz (fence of pales), the word refers to the spiked fence
surrounding Bertilacs castle. But it also has roots in Old French that refer to the place enclosed
by a fence or palisade. It is in this sense that we can see the development of the more modern
palace. The former meaning is more likely the intention of the poet, though he may also
intend resonances of the latter.

vmbetee (line 770) (very loosely) enclosed

An adjectival form (umbe + teye) of the noun tey (the yogh in the final intra-vowel
position carries a y sound). Tey seems to be a uniquely ME word, with few variants (tey, teye,
taie, taye). It means something like a case, sheath, or outer covering. Here we see Bertilacs
castle as being enclosed by his palisade, but with possible martial overtones (sheathed).

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holde (line 771) hold

From OE heald, the word went through mostly vowel changes in ME (hald, holde,
hauld), though later Scots also unvoiced the final position (holt). It was the northern forms that
held onto to the a the longest. The term refers to a fort or strong place (hence, stronghold), but
it also carries the sense of a place of refuge, which is a particularly fitting its place in the poem.

hael (line 771) (loosely) man

A variant of athel, an OE term, the word has almost no alternate spellings (only hathil).
When used in alliterative verse, the word can simply mean man. But its normal usage carries
higher connotations of noble or man of worth. The term is used elsewhere in the poem (line
2065) to describe Gawain armored and armed, seated on his horse. We can see here the
progression of Gawain from a mere segge into a hael as he emerges from the wilderness and
catches sight of Bertilacs castle.

auysed (line 771) advised

From Norman avyser, and Old French aviser. The word is used in a curious way to our
modern sensibility: at hold on at syde e hael auysed (line 771). The key is in an early use of
aviser in which it meant to look at or to examine, recognize. The term shifted from meaning
to to see into meaning to direct attention to. Here we see not that Gawain is advising
Bertilacs castle, but rather that he is observing it.

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schemered (line 772) shimmered

From the late OE scymrian, out of Frisian skimerje or skimere (to shimmer). The word
doesnt change much in ME, with most of the variance being in the initial consonant cluster.
The northern version, skimmer, altered // to /sk/, but the Gawain poet seems to be in keeping
with the more common usage in retaining the soft initial.

ur (line 772) through

From the OE urh, the word has variants in Frisian, Dutch, Saxon, and other Germanic
languages. Several interesting changes have occurred on the way to our modern word. The final
position went through a brief period of variants related to // before settling on the older form of
/g/. The reversal of the medial sounds (ruh) seems to originate in ME. The OE word, when
fully stressed, became uruh, which later becomes our thorough. The process is common to
other words of the same construction (burh to borough, furh to furrow).

hendly (line 773) courteously

The root of modern handily, the word is from the OE adjective gehende. It originally
meant courteous, gracious, kind. It was a common praise, especially in ME poetry, and is
surely the usage intended by the Gawain poet. The meaning of ready or skillful with the hand
seems to be contemporary with the former meaning, appearing in records as early as the late
thirteenth century.

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cortaysly (line 775) courteously

From Old French corteis or curteis. The word entered ME as cortes and gradually shifted
to courtois or courtoys. These forms then allowed for the insertion of an extra syllable in the
final position, where courtoys became courtoyus. It was after this change (fifteenth century) that
forms of courteous began to appear (curteous, courtious). It is curious to note that the Gawain
poet uses cortaysly so soon after using hendly (line 773). The answer may lie in the fact that
hendly is a distinctly OE word, while cortaysly is unmistakably French. As Gawain emerges
from the forest and makes his way to the castle, he is becoming more and more knightly, noble,
and civilized.

kydde (line 775) made known

The past participle of kithe, from the OE cu. The word means to make known, to
announce, to declare. The Gawain poet here uses it in reference to Jesus and Saint Julian
making Gawain known, perhaps in reference to saintly intercession. It does not seem to have
survived into Modern English, falling out of use in the sixteenth century. Its use was rare
enough that even Spenser misused it (The Shepheardes Calender, 1579). The Gawain poets use
of it may be as much a phonetic as a semantic choice, as part of an alliterative line: at cortaysly
had hym kydde, and his cry herkened (line 775).

hostel (line 776) lodging

From the Old French ostel or osteil, the word is the root for our modern hotel. It does
not change much over time, having only a few variations in spelling (mainly the dropping of the
initial h, and in how the final vowel is represented). It is interesting to note that the Gawain

Dodson 16

poet actually spells hostel differently elsewhere in the poem (ostel, line 253). It may be a scribal
error, or it may be that the requirements of the poets form required different spellings in
different places. The former is more likely, as the lines in question (lines 253, 776) dont seem
to compel either the presence or absence of an initial h.

coe (line 776) quoth

From OE, the word seems to have had an unusual number of variants even from the
beginning (ce, coe, cu, cuo). The use of initial c (sometimes cw-) lasted into early
Middle English before changing to q. For a period, the word carried a final d rather than eth
or th. There is some speculation that this may be a scribal error. It is thought that the first
appearances of the final d are simply an uncrossed eth, which may have led to a widespread
use of written quod, even when the word was intended to be pronounced /cwo/.

burne (line 776) (loosely, as used) knight

From OE byrne, probably originating in Old Norse brinie. The word is used here to
represent Gawain, but this seems to be a poetic stretch. It is more properly used to describe a
piece of the knights raiment, his cuirass (our modern, but still archaic, byrnie). This usage of it
to describe the knight himself appears unique to the Gawain poet.

beseche (line 776) beseech

A variant of ME secen, from OE scan, meaning to seek, to go in search of. This is a
case where different pronunciations of a word have branched into two different words in modern

Dodson 17

English. The northern pronunciation of the final /k/ survives in the modern seek. The
southern pronunciation of // survives in modern beseech.

gerde (line 777) girds

A ME word of obscure origins. Other forms typically vary in representation of the
medial vowel (gerde, gyrd, gurde) and in the voicing of the final consonant. Its meaning is
properly to strike, to smite, but it also usually includes the result of the strike. Thus, Gawain
girds his horse, but we understand that the purpose of his striking the animal is to impel it to
move forward. It is also interesting to note that this is another case in which the Gawain poets
spelling is not consistent, as he later spells it as gorde (line 2062).

Gryngolet (line 777) Gringolet

The name of Sir Gawains horse. It has been thought to be French, and there is the
French Guingalet and Gringalet. But the r present in the latter spelling is characteristic of
French variants of Celtic or Germanic words. Tolkien thus posits an origin in Welsh,
*Gwyngalet, which would mean white-hard.

bremly (line 779) (meanings are various and unclear)

The adverbial form of an interesting word of uncertain definition. In OE, brme meant
celebrated, famous. The ME meaning is a good deal more varied. Benson translates it as
quickly, though he may have done so in order to keep the sense communicated by the rest of
the line: at brot bremly e burne to e bryge ende / in haste (lines 779, 780). Armitage does
not even attempt a translation, skipping the word entirely. Other uses in ME include meanings

Dodson 18

such as fiercely, vehemently, strongly, or splendidly, brilliantly, clearly, or sometimes to

describe the fierceness of a flame or blaze.

vpbrayde (line 781) upbraid

From OE upbregdan, the word quickly lost its g. ME forms vary for the most part in
the representation of the vowel sounds (upbreydyn, upbreiden, upbrade). The modern meaning
of to reproach, reprove, censure, doesnt appear until the mid-fourteenth century. The more
common meaning, and the one used by the Gawain poet, is to cast, pull, or set up.

stoken (line 782) shut

From early ME steken, probably from an unrecorded OE word (*stc, *stecen). Most
likely related to the verb stecan, to thrust, stab, pierce. The use of the word to mean shut
may come from the method of fastening with a pin or bolt.

dut (line 784) (loosely) feared

From the Old French dute, ME variants tended to stress and change the medial syllable
(dowte, doute, doughte). The words presence here is probably a poetic stretch. Standard
definitions of the word include apprehension, dread, fear, but as a noun. The Gawain poet uses
it as a verb: (the walls) dut no wynde blaste (line 784). This usage seems to be unique.

blaste (line 784) blast

From OE blst, the word doesnt vary much in ME. The curious note here is that the
original Germanic word, which meant a blowing or strong gust of wind, is also the root of our

Dodson 19

modern blaze. We can still see traces of this in the sense of blaze which lasted into the midsixteenth century, wherein it could mean to blow, to puff, as with a musical instrument.

Dodson 20

Glossary

As nearly all Middle English (and some Old English) words possessed numerous forms,
examples are given that best express the most common structure of those forms. Only
those words with a particularly wide variation are noted as such. Select deviations by
Geoffrey Chaucer are also noted.

a OE an, ME an (a, (lines 764, 765, 767-769)

abof OE abufan, ME abowyn (various), (line 765)
aboute OE onbutan, ME anbowt, (lines 766, 768)
al l (various), ME aull (various), (line 768)
and OE end (various), (lines 772-775, 778)
arrayed OF areyer, ME arraye, (line 783)
as OE eall swa, ME as, (line 772)
ate OE ahtan, ME aughte (various), (line 767)
auysed OF aviser, ME awyse, (Chaucer: auysing), (line 771)
beseech ME sechen, (Chaucer: by-seken), (line 776)
bi OE bian, (line 766)
blaste OE blst, (line 784)
boe OE bg, ME bohu (various), (line 765)
bole Old Norse bulr, (line 766)
bone French bon, Old Norse boon (possible), (line 776)
borelych High German burlch, ME burlich, (line 766)

Dodson 21

bot be-tan, ME bote (various), (line 763)

boe Old Norse bar, ME bothyn (various), (Chaucer: bothe), (line 774)
bremly OE brme, ME brymme, (Chaucer: breme and breeme), (line 779)
brot OE brengan, ME browghte, (Chaucer: browht), (line 779)
bryge OE brycg, ME brigge, (lines 779, 781)
burne OE byrne, ME brinie, (lines 776, 779)
castel OF castel, (line 767)
chauncely OF cheance, ME chaunce, (line 778)
chef OF chef, ME chief, (line 778)
chosen OE cos-an, ME cheose, (Chaucer: chosen), (line 778)
comlokest OE cmlic, ME comlych (various), (line 767)
cortaysly OF corteis, ME curtayse (various), (Chaucer: curteys), (line 775)
coe OE coe, ME cwa, (Chaucer: quod), (line 776)
cry French cri, (line 775)
diches OE dc, Me dych, (line 766)
dut OF dute, ME doughte, (Chaucer: doute), (line 784)
ende OE ende, ME hende, (line 779)
er OE r, ME ar (various), (line 764)
euer OE fre, ME aver, (line 767)
faste OE fst, (Chaucer: fast), (line 782)
ful OE ful, (line 778)
gate OE geat, ME yhet (various), (Chaucer: gate and ate), (line 778)
ate variant of gate, (line 782)

Dodson 22

ette OE giet, ette, (Chaucer: yet, it, and yit), (line 776)
gentyle OF gentil, ME gentyle and jentyle, (Chaucer: gentil), (line 774)
gerde ME gerde, (line 777)
gilt OE gegyld, ME gyld, (Chaucer: gilde), (line 777)
had OE habban, (line 775)
haste OF haste, ME hayste, (line 780)
hat OE hafde, ME has, (lines 773, 778)
hael OE el-u, ME aele, (line 771)
hely OE halc (speculative), ME hiely, (line 773)
hele OE hla, ME hele, (line 777)
helme OE helm, ME healm, (line 773)
hendly OE gehende, ME hende, (line 773)
herkened OE heorcnian, ME herkyn, (Chaucer: herknen), (line 775)
his OE hys, (lines 773, 775)
hit OE hit, (Chaucer: hyt), (lines 772, 784)
holde OE heald, ME holde, (line 771)
hostel OF ostel, (Chaucer: hostele), (line 776)
hym OE heom, (line 775)
hymself OE him selfum, (line 763)
I OE ich, ME ik (various), (Chaucer: Ik and I), (line 776)
in OE in, (lines 764, 780)
Jesus Latin Iesus, OE hlend, OF Iesu, (line 774)
knyt OE cniht, ME knight, (Chaucer: knight), (line 767)

Dodson 23

kydde ME kyd (various), (Chaucer: kyd), (line 775)

launde OF launde, (line 765)
lawe OE hlauw (various), ME low, (line 765)
loken OE lcan, ME loken (various), (line 765)
mo OE m, ME moe, (line 770)
mony OE mnig, ME moni (various), (line 766)
mote OF motte, ME mote (various), (line 764)
myle OE (from Latin) mil, ME myle, (line 770)
nade OE nawuht, ME nawjght (various), (line 763)
no OE na, ME noe, (line 784)
now OE nuu, ME nough, (line 776)
of OE off (rare), ME of, (lines 764, 766, 773)
oke OE ac, ME hoke (varied), (Chaucer: ookes), (line 772)
on OE on, ME onne (various), (lines 765, 768, 771)
palays Anglo-Norman paleiz, ME palys, (Chaucer: palis), (line 769)
park OF parc, ME perke, (line 768)
prayere OF praerie, (line 768)
pyched ME pytch, (Chaucer: pighte), (line 768)
pyked OE pic, (line 769)
pyned ME pennyd, (line 769)
sayn OF saint, ME seinte, (Chaucer: Seint and Seynt), (line 774)
sayned OF signier, ME signed, (line 763)
schemered OE scymrian, ME schymere, (line 772)

Dodson 24

schon OE scnan, (Chaucer: shoon), (line 772)

schyre OE scr, ME scire, (line 772)
segge OE scg, (line 763)
stoken OE *stecan, ME steke (various), (line 782)
syde OE side, (Chaucer: side), (line 771)
at OE t, (lines 767, 771, 774, 775, 779)
e OE e (various), (lines 764, 766, 767, 771, 772, 774, 776-779, 782, 783)
en OE onne, ME enne, (line 770)
enne OE anonne, ME anen, (lines 773, 777)
ik OE icce, ME thycke, (Chaucer: thikke), (line 769)
onke OE ancian, ME thanc, (line 773)
rye OE riwa, (line 763)
ur OE urh, (Chaucer: thurgh), (line 772)
to OE t, (lines 777-779)
tre OE treow, ME trewes, (line 770)
two OE tua, ME twa (northern: twae), (line 770
vmbetee ME umbetaye, (line 770)
vnder OE under, (line 765)
vpbrayde OE upbredan, ME upbraide, (Chaucer: vpbreide and vp breyde), (line 781)
walle OE weall, ME walle, (line 783)
war OE gewr, ME iware, (line 764)
wat OE wesan, ME wast, (lines 764, 781)
wel OE uel, ME well (various), (Chaucer: wel and weel), (line 783)

Dodson 25

wer OE wron, (Chaucer: were), (line 782, 783)

with OE wi, ME whith (various), (Chaucer: with), (lines 769, 777)
wod OE widu, ME wode, (line 764)
won OE wunian, (line 764)
wynde OE windig, ME wyndie, (line 784)
yow OE ieow, ME ow (various), (line 776)

Dodson 26

References
Armitage, Simon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2007. Print.
Benson, Larry D. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Morgantown: West Virginia University
Press, 2012. Print.
http://www.etymonline.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Web. 12/8/13.
http://www.merriam-webster.com. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Web. 12/8/13.
http://www.oed.com. Oxford English Dictionary. Web. 12/8/13.
Tolkien, J. R. R. and E.V. Gordon. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1967. Print.