Awntyrs off Arthure at the Terne Wathelyn

Abstract

The Awntyrs off Arthure is an anonymous, late‐medieval, alliterative romance composed in the 13‐line stanza, surviving in varying forms in four manuscripts. The poem first narrates an encounter with the ghost of Guinevere's mother, who both urges Guinevere to seek salvation and condemns the Arthurian militarism practiced by Gawain, and then portrays Galeron of Galloway's fateful effort to reclaim his lands by dueling Gawain before Arthur's court. With its linkage of spiritual condemnation and militarist expansionism, the Awntyrs directs itself to the culture of an unstable borderlands.