Last year we got all cozy around the fire and listened to a BBC Radio 4 adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which has everything you want in a Christmas story: random decapitation, bloody violence and invitations to adultery. This year, the link is no longer available, but we have something even better: the new verse translation by poet Simon Armitage that served as the basis for the BBC production. If you want to do a little tire-kicking (stirrup-kicking?) before you buy, here’s Richard Nokes with a comparison of some choice lines from the Armitage translation against the same lines from Marie Borroff’s widely used translation.
Meanwhile, if all the mayhem puts you in the Christmas spirit, Mary Kate Hurley has a suggestion about the perfect gift for the Anglo-Saxonist who has everything.
