Through the fault of no one but himself, King Arthur has gotten into a dilemma that leaves his life hanging in the balance. And to top it off, his only chance to avoid the worst possible consequences involves finding a husband for the ugliest woman he’s ever seen. In a moment of selfish and rather quite pathetic self-pity, Arthur bemoans to his lone confidante in this circumstance:
“Gawain, I met the foulest lady today,
Certainly the worst I've ever seen.
She told me she would save my life
But first she wants to have a husband.
Therefore, I moan. I am woebegone."
Without so much as one moment’s hesitation or consideration of his own circumstances, Gawain’s immediately reply to his sovereign is typically Gawainian:
"Is that all? I shall wed her.”
The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is divided into seven parts and the first section is all about King Arthur stumbling into a problem. One might well begin to assume that Gawain is merely a secondary character from the lack of attention on him and the focus on Arthur, but make no mistake: this is Gawain’s saga all the way. Consider it a companion piece to that more famous tale about the most honorable and good knight of them all; the one about the weird, otherworldly green knight.
Dame Ragnelle is not green, but that’s about the only point of contention in her favor. Here is a partial list of the displeasing physical aspect of Dame Ragnelle:
She’s got a red face and runny nose, yellow teeth like tusks, curved back, thick neck, clotted hair, lips like lumps and breasts so abundant that a stolid horse might collapse under the weight. Indeed, she was so ugly that it would take a proclamation of law to get anyone to marry her.
So it goes without saying that Gawain would be the one to call her his bride. Gawain is not just called the most honorable knight in Camelot for PR purposes, after all. No, Gawain’s goodness serves a distinct purpose and his purpose fulfills an important role at the Round Table. Gawain is in effect Arthur’s Secretary of State. The unwritten imperative of his position in Arthur’s court is to be the agency of light bringing the land out of the Dark Ages. Gawain is the mediator between that which is primitive, supernatural and, well, what just ain’t right in order to explain it so that its existence can be assimilated into the Arthurian plans for civilization, order, logic, reason, science and codified conduct. Gawain’s more famous encounter with the Green Knight actually has some rather unsavory aspects that cast some shadow on his legacy as Gawain the Good, but whatever moral ambiguities may exist, they serve the purpose of explaining the Other.
For her part, Dame Ragnelle is fundamentally in opposition to the new codified standards of chivalric conduct for women. How is a knight supposed to honor those codes if the damsel not only looks like the ugliest women in the world, but behaves like it as well? Rules are rules, after all and one cannot create civilization out of the darkness of primitive supernatural fears if exceptions are made. At every step along the way, Ragnelle is implicated by the narrator and Arthur as an outsider and seditious rebel to the entire premise of Camelot. She is not just physically unappealing, but absolutely foul in character and comportment. Let’s put it this way: she’s no Guinevere.
The entire wedding turns on Arthur’s little situation; Gawain’s quick agreement to marry the hag is no mere accident of being in the wrong time at the wrong place. Gawain was born to be Arthur’s only confidante and co-conspirator in this affair. Only Gawain among all the knights would not have let so much as one unnecessary second go by without letting Arthur off the hook by sacrificing himself with those three little words: “Is that all?”
Gawain does marry Ragnelle as a pall of despondency settles over everyone else in Camelot. But lo and behold, things do not turn out as everyone suspects. Marriage to Gawain has a remarkable effect on the Other, the outsider, the Dame who may not be green, but must certainly be brought into line just like that weird knight. It is Gawain’s destiny. And it plays out just as it should. For it was later observed of Dame Ragnelle that:
“She was the fairest lady
In all of England
When she lived.
Even Arthur said so.”
