Image: © Creative Commons, link here
Author: Kit Schofield
Sir Gawain and the Green Dragon
Great deeds were done during Arthur’s reign,
Many battles were fought and great Knights slain,
Many demons downed and Vikings vanquished,
Many fabled foes of their heads relinquished.
None battled braver than gallant Gawain,
Who always returned fresh from a war,
Never he bled, nor his armour stained,
No wiser a warrior I ever saw.
On the greenest day in years,
A peasant man came pleading to Sirs,
He told a tale of a vicious snake,
Arthur discarded his fears as fake,
But great Gawain took up his spurs.
Immediately he rode at full speed,
Sought out the farmer’s golden field,
But mounted on his splendid steed,
The only gold in sight was his shield.
He asked the man the meaning of this,
Where are his famous fields and flocks?
They had been burnt by lizard’s kiss,
That scaled beast born out of the rocks.
Our hero hastened towards the mountain,
Determined to slay his fiendish foe,
And at the summit he saw him waiting,
Surrounded by the melting snow.
What began as mere a drop,
Came over Gawain a mighty wave,
A crushing cascade that never stopped,
A trick played by the nasty knave.
This liquid onslaught did not dampen his heart,
He was overcome by a different blast,
Nothing could block this flaming dart,
Gawain was swift but the flare too fast.
Having for this final time,
Put himself in the line of fire,
He’s stolen from us in his prime,
Burning in Nature’s funeral pyre.