THE CARLE OF CARLISLE: FOOTNOTES

1 Lines 55-58: He bore arms of blue and gold, / [Emblazoned] with several griffins, / And the distinguishing mark of a mullet (i.e., star) / He always bore on his crest (see note)

2 "You imagined more (than you said)"

THE CARLE OF CARLISLE: NOTES

Abbreviations: P = Percy Folio; M = Madden's edition; HF = Hales' and Furnivall's edition; K = Kurvinen's edition. See Select Bibliography for these editions.


19 grass-time. The term refers to the "grease" time, when herds have fattened; see explanation of this idiom, and of the assay or "breaking" of the deer in Ragnelle, line 46 note.

20 breake the deere. This term is frequently used for the prescribed, almost ritualized, dressing of the dead animal. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (lines 1325 ff.) offers a striking and detailed account, in which brek occurs at line 1333; briefer descriptions of the hunt appear in Ragnelle (lines 46 ff.), Carlisle (lines 29 ff., 85-87, 103 ff.), Avowyng (lines 25 ff.), and Awntyrs (lines 5 ff.).

21 ff. On the catalogue of knights, see notes on the corresponding passage in Carlisle, lines 34 ff.

31 cozen Mordred. In Cornwall, line 1, Arthur calls Gawain "cuzen" or kinsman; see note on Carlisle, line 49, which refers to "The Kyngus uncull, Syr Mordrete."

55 ff. Sir Ironside's coat of arms consists of a field of blue, emblazoned in gold with a griffon lesse or more. The phrase lesse or more, which may have been composed for metrical rather than descriptive purposes, seems to suggest arms decorated with more than one griffin, though how the animals are arranged is unclear. Lesse or more may indicate the presence of an inescutcheon, i.e. one smaller coat of arms set within a larger to signify a family connection, or, geratting, where the family symbol or totem is repeated across the field of the coat. The griffin, a mythical beast, may symbolize the traits of the bearer, as is suggested in John Trevor's fifteenth-century Welsh Llyfr Arfau [Book of Arms]: "A griffon borne in arms signifies that the first to bear it was a strong, pugnacious man in whom were found two distinct natures and qualities: for the griffon is a bird in its head and talons and resembles an eagle, and its hind part is like that of a lion" (in Evan John Jones' Medieval Heraldry: Some Fourteenth-Century Heraldic Works [Cardiff, Wales: William Lewis, 1903], p. 45). Also, Lycurgus, the King of Thrace in Chaucer's Knight's Tale, is intimidatingly described as glaring around "lik a grifphon" (line 2133). Ironside's coat of arms contains a difference, or cadence mark designed to distinguish it from that of his father or other senior kinsman. In this case it is a mullet, a figure resembling a five-pointed star (cp. with Gawain's pentangle [line 664] in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), which became the particular mark of the third son of a family: "originally the mullet was a spur rowel, from the French word molette, but it now has a stereotyped form and more often symbolizes a star" (J. P. Brooke-Little, An Heraldic Alphabet, rev. ed., [London: Robson Books, 1985], p. 145). Griffins, either as crests or ornamentation, appear elsewhere in Arthurian poems in association with Gawain. In Awntyrs, this hero bears arms engraved with griffons of golde (line 509). In Libeaus Desconus, Arthur gives Gawain's son (i.e., The Fair Unknown) "a rich sheeld all over gilte / with a griffon soe gay" (lines 92-93 in Hales' and Furnivall's edition of the Percy Folio [see Bibliography of Editions and Works Cited], vol. 2, p. 419); in the Cotton version of this romance (edited by Mills [see Bibliography of Editions and Works Cited]) "Lybeau Desconus" receives a golden shield with a griffin (lines 78-81). Interestingly, there also exists a fifteenth-century depiction of a coat of arms composed of a green field emblazoned with three gold griffins registered to "SIR GAWAYNE the good knyght" (Harleian MS 2169; this is reproduced in The Ancestor: A Quarterly Review of County and Family History, Heraldry and Antiquities 3 [1902], p. 192; see also General Introduction, note 21). The description of Ironside's arms in both Carlisle and Carle suggests by its placement some confusion with the distinct armorial bearings associated with Gawain and his kin. See Awntyrs, line 509 and note, and Carlisle, lines 82 ff. and note. Baron Simon de Montagu (d. 1317) bore arms resembling those of Sir Ironside, composed of blue and gold, with, depending on the particular campaign, either one or two griffins - the animal assumed to be the symbol of his house, which died out in 1428.

61 they. P: the; HF prints thé in instances where the scribal spelling the represents "they." I emend to they here and at lines 73, 81, 82, and 459. Elsewhere the scribe uses they as the form of the demonstrative adjective or the definite article. I have emended this spelling to the at lines 63, 170, 171, 215, 216, 287, 289, 290, 295, 299, 331, 345, 349, 359, 365, and 375.

121 ff. All these remarks are proverbial; see Carlisle line 160 and note.

125 gaine. This is a broken rhyme, whose meaning is unclear. M in a note suggests the emendation him for he, which would give, "win him [the Carl] over." gaine may be the adverbial form (meaning "back," "in return") used as a verb, giving "reply to," "respond to"; or it may be the noun gein, "reward," "profit" (whose northern form, gawin, would suit the rhyme) used as a verb, giving "reward," "respond favorably to."

152 Theres. K: There's, with no indication of punctuation in P.

179 ff. Given the obviously fantastic dimensions of the Carle, who is clearly a fairy-tale giant, it may seem pointless to note that his size here far exceeds that in Carlisle: here his shoulders are nine feet broad (rather than six), and he is seventy-five feet tall (as opposed to twenty-seven in Carlisle; see lines 256 ff.).

269 This overt anti-clerical (or, more precisely, anti-episcopal in its focus on miter and ringe) outburst seems to reflect a post-Reformation rather than a medieval attitude. In Carlisle, when Baldwin claims a similar benefit of clergy, the Carle simply attacks his want of courtesy. Turke, lines 154 ff., contains a similar intrusive anti-clericalism.

309 race. In Carlisle, the Carl asks Gawain to "take thy passe," to take his position at the door.

367 bloody serke. This is a traditional phrase; see note at line 535 of Carlisle.

379 ff. The beheading scene, by which the Carle is "delivered . . . From all false witchcrafft" (lines 402-03) is inexplicably missing from Carlisle. The manner of disenchantment resembles the similar episode in Turke (see lines 271 ff. and note). The Carle's revelation that he had been "by nigromancé . . . shapen" (line 405) echoes Ragnelle's use of the same term; see Ragnelle, line 691 and note.