W HEN the hero of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight sets out from Camelot to keep his promise at the Green Chapel, he and all his friends are quite sure that he will never return alive (11. 56o, 669, 68i). Had Merlin himself predicted his unfortunate end, it could not have seemed more certain. He has been trapped, partly through Arthur's pride and rashness, but largely through the deceitful power of a magician or a pagan goddess, in one of those desperate situations where it really seems possible to foretell the destiny of an individual. Yet the good Gawain, Mary's knight, does return, thereby showing that contrary to appearances he was not the victim of an unalterable fate, and that magic is not an omnipotent force. But Gawain does not emerge a conqueror in the usual manner of epic and romance. It is not through aggressive courage or military skill or natural cunning that he eludes magic and masters fate. His one active and aggressive deed was, as the Green Knight himself made clear, mere boys' stuff, and very foolish at that (285-6). What brings him safely through his encounters with the world of magic are the 'passive' but (in the circumstances) very exacting virtues of patient fortitude, truth, piety, and chastity: virtues which are frequently annexed in part by the typical Arthurian hero but, when viewed in the context of medieval narrative and idealism as a whole, are much more characteristic of the saint, the perennial Christian hero.