Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Tradition and Customs Quotes

Holiday celebrations are a time for the king to bring all his vassals together under one roof. The point of the gathering wasn’t all fun and games: it was an opportunity for the king to solidify the feudal bonds to his vassals, affirming their continued loyalty.

This passage demonstrates some of the holiday traditions enjoyed by fifteenth century revelers: the word "Noel" and the gift-giving are familiar to us.  What we might not recognize is the exchange of New Year’s gifts, but at that time it was traditional for people to exchange gifts from the 25th of December until the 6th of January, during the twelve days of Christmas. Christmas was actually a time period in the church year that lasted for two weeks.

We’re not very far into the poem and this is the second time the narrator has referred to people doing things "as seem[s] proper." This repetition betrays his concern with traditions and customs, and here, the proper hierarchy of people.

The king has started a tradition of refusing to eat on a feast day until he has heard or witnessed a "wonder." In this, he’s fulfilling a duty as a host, for it’s up to him to make sure everyone under his roof has a good time during the celebration. He needs to provide entertainment, and his custom ensures that he will.

This passage makes strange use of the word "custom," which we usually associate with traditions humans have instituted as part of culture. By contrast, here, custom is "requir[ing]"
nature to repeat its cycle of seasons, almost as though this cycle is something humans have instituted. In any case, this strange use mixes nature and culture in an interesting way.

This passage marks the beginning of the deer-butchering scene. Medieval hunting was an extremely complex ritual about which whole instruction manuals were written. There was a proper way of doing everything, from uncoupling the hounds to skinning the deer.  Part of being a good nobleman was knowing how to perform the ritual precisely.

This and many lines to follow describe in great detail the proper method of skinning and butchering a deer. So precise was this ritual that the exact order of cuts the butcher made was prescribed. Hunting is really an art form; to break with its rules is to betray yourself as ill-educated in the art.

In keeping with hunting’s status as an art form, all of the different pieces of the animal had specific names that instruction-books could help the nobleman to learn. Here, the narrator gives us the correct name for the piece of meat or muscle torn from a deer’s spine, perhaps to show off his knowledge of hunting terminology.

Every person and animal who participated in a hunt (and in the raven’s case, who is just waiting nearby) receives a designated part of the prey as part of his "fee." Here, the raven’s fee seems to be some part of the animal’s face, while the hunters are rewarded with the animal’s sides.

One of the reasons the hounds enjoy hunting so much is that they know that they, too, will receive a portion of the butchered animal. In their case, it’s the animal’s guts, mixed with blood. The hunter lays this out on the deerskin, then calls the hounds to come eat it.

The order of butchery for every animal differed in medieval hunting manuals; here, the boar loses his head before any other part. The dogs are given their portion before the butchering has finished.

The point of the boar-butchery ritual seems to be to create an object for display, with the two sides of boar fastened together so they can be "proudly" carried on a pole and the head kept intact as a trophy for the man who slaughters it.