paper, 184 pages

ff. 1–15v The Vision of Tundale records the experiences of a dreadful man who lived, reputedly, in Ireland in the middle of the twelfth century. It is a Middle English translation of a Latin work, the Visio Tnugdali, written by an Irish Benedictine monk living in Germany. The story tells of Tundale's physical collapse as he engages in some fraudulent horse-dealing, his deathlike appearance, the journey of his soul through purgatory and the Earthly Paradise and his subsequent awakening and pursuit of a new life in penitence, poverty and great virtue, since he can recall everything that happened to him during his near-death experience.

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ff. 16–23r Sir Owain tells a story that is strongly associated with the life of Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland. Saint Patrick was reputed to have been shown, in a dream, an entrance into purgatory on Lough Derg in County Donegal, Ireland, and had an abbey built over the place. Sinners could receive remission from suffering after death by entering into this chasm, which was guarded by white monks. One such repentant sinner was Sir Owain, whose experiences are recounted in graphic detail.

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ff. 23–27v Awntyrs off Arthur is an Arthurian tale that is constructed like a diptych, a medieval religious painting created on two pieces of wood that fold open to give a view of two related, or perhaps opposing scenes. The first half of the story takes place while King Arthur is out hunting beside Tarn Wathelene in Inglewood Forest, Cumbria. Queen Guinevere and Sir Gawain meet with the ghost of Guinevere's mother rising from the lake. In the second half of the tale, a knight arrives at King Arthur's hall and demands satisfaction for the theft of his lands.

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ff. 28–35v Pearl is a highly-regarded Middle English alliterative poem of the late-fourteenth century. The poem is divided into sections mostly of five stanzas each, whose beginnings echo the end phrase of the previous section, all strung together like a necklace of pearls. The one hundred and one stanzas in total, suggest circularity and renewal. The story itself tells of a bereaved father's joy and puzzlement when he is taken in a dream, after collapsing in grief upon his young daughter's grave, to where his infant daughter now resides on the opposite bank of a river which he cannot cross. They have no difficulty conversing with one another, however, and the girl proves to be a very articulate maiden in her heavenly setting.

ff. 35v–46v Cleanness follows on from Pearl in British Library MS Cotton Nero A x. and seeks to illustrate the hatred that God feels for what is termed uncleanness. A curious anecdote in which a man is chosen apparently at random and in haste from the general public, in order to make up the numbers at an imminent wedding feast, only to be violently castigated for not being in his best clothes, is followed by retellings of the story of Noah and the Flood, the violent destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the sack of Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the writing on the wall at Belshazzar's feast, illustrating God's capacity for vengeance.

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ff. 47–50r Patience concerns itself with another biblical story, the one detailed in the Book of Jonah. The story follows the biblical text quite closely and accurately, describing Jonah's refusal to comply with God's instructions, his attempt at escape, the storm at sea, his being swallowed by a whale and regurgitated on a shore near to where God wanted him to go in the first place. One wonders, though, what prompted this poet, who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, to highlight a story whose most memorable scene is Jonah's existence inside a sea creature. The message seems to be – never run from your destiny, there is no way of escaping it, and treat adversity with patience.

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ff. 50–66r Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is perhaps the most well-known of all fourteenth century Middle English poems, excluding those of Geoffrey Chaucer. Curiously, like Pearl, it too contains one hundred and one stanzas, suggesting circularity and renewal. Sir Gawain cuts off the head of a giant Otherworldly green knight at King Arthur's Christmas feast only to have to suffer a similar stroke of the axe himself, a year later, in a plot that bears similarities to ancient Irish mythology. This he does, despite initial difficulty in finding the Green Chapel at the appointed time, possibly in Inglewood Forest in Cumbria, having ridden for days across a landscape that might well be the North Pennines. By virtue of a circular band of cloth that he is wearing, Sir Gawain is both subject to a proper blow from the axe and is perfectly safe from it, since it will protect him from death. This magic girdle is emulated by all the Knights of the Round Table upon Sir Gawain's return to King Arthur's court, and worn as a sash.

ff. 66–70r Sir Gawain and the Carle of Carlisle relates how Sir Gawain, while hunting in the company of Sir Kay and Bishop Baldwin, is guided by a deer to an Otherworldly place, again, probably, in the haunted Inglewood Forest near Carlisle. It is the castle of a giant who keeps wild animals as pets and which, near the end of the story, carries a hint that it may also lie, at another poetic level, in the sky; like the castle of the giant that Jack encounters in the English fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk. The story also recalls an early-twelfth century frieze on an archivolt in Modena Cathedral in northern Italy, inspired by a Breton tale of an assault by Gawain, Kay and another companion on the castle of the giant Carrado, the Irish Cú Roí mac Dáire. In Irish mythology, Cú Roí mac Dáire is involved in a beheading game with Cú Chulaind.

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ff. 70–75v Sir Amadace tells the story of a knight who falls into debt and journeys with his few remaining companions into voluntary exile, where he soon comes across the stinking body of an unburied debtor in a church. He pays off the man's debts so that he can be buried, loses his companions, encounters a ghost, possibly the debtor's, and soon finds himself on a seashore surrounded by the remains of a shipwreak. Assuming a new identity, he is guided into a new life by claiming that the treasure he has recovered from this shipwreck is his own. Soon he marries, has a daughter and lives in wealth and happiness. But then the ghost of the debtor returns, to claim his share of this new life.

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ff. 76–80v Robert of Cisyle (Robert of Sicily) is one of many medieval tales which tell of men who fall into destitution and then rise back again into greatness at the end. Sir Isumbras, Sir Amadace, Sir Cleges and Sir Gowther all suffer similar reversals, and when Sir Isumbras becomes a blacksmith, or Sir Cleges is thought by the king to have died, or Sir Gowther is forced to eat with the dogs under the emperor’s table, one might wonder if the turn of the wheel has taken them beyond death and into a new life, as also when Emaré drifts across the sea alone in a boat to assume a new identity as Egaré in a new land. In this tale of Robert of Sicily, one is left in no doubt. For three years, King Robert lives as someone else entirely, a fool, while King Robert still rules. King Robert is alive, and so is King Robert. But the old King Robert is now living a new life, as a fool, with a different face. Nobody recognises him.

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ff. 81–88r Floris and Blancheflour are two young lovers who, although from different backgrounds, have been inseparable companions in the royal court of Floris's father, the King of Spain. When, upon returning from a period spent away from court, Floris is presented with Blancheflour's tomb, he opens it, finds it to be empty, is told what has really happened to her and travels to where Blancheflour is now living. Before setting out on this journey, Floris's mother gives him a ring which will protect him from death. He finds Blancheflour in an idyllic setting, surrounded by a garden of magic fruit trees, like a Garden of Eden. However, he is, in fact, near the palace of the Emir of Babylon, in the real world, and Blancheflour, in her new life as one of the Emir's maidens, is in desperate need of being rescued.

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ff. 88–90r Saint Kenelm was an early English king of the kingdom of Mercia in the ninth century AD. Crowned at the tender age of seven years old, he is soon martyred through the jealousy of one of his sisters and secretly buried in a wood in the Clent Hills in Worcestershire. God persuades a cow to mark the spot where his remains lie by sitting there every day without eating. Despite this, the cow produces an abundance of milk. Following the receipt of a miraculous communication through the agency of a dove, the Pope in Rome alerts the English clergy and the body, after being fought over by the men of Worcestershire and the men of Gloucestershire, is placed in a shrine in Winchcombe Abbey in Gloucestershire. A number of healing wells miraculously spring up along the line of this journey to Winchcombe, as a result of the proximity of his body.

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ff. 90–92r Saint Edmund the King was a pious king of the English kingdom of East Anglia in the ninth century AD. He is killed, in this legend, during a Danish invasion and martyred in a forest, where his head is thrown into a thorn thicket. As in the story of Saint Kenelm, an animal now enters the tale, showing an unnatural concern for some human remains. In this case it is a wolf. It guards Saint Edmund's head and keeps it from the ravages of other scavengers until the head is miraculously found by locals and carried away. The wolf follows the funeral cortège, howling pitifully, as though through some unfathomable confraternity.

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