The story with which the poem deals, too, has claims upon our interest. I have shown elsewhere[a] that the beheading challenge is an incident of very early occurrence in heroic legend, and that the particular form given to it in the English poem is especially interesting, corresponding as it does to the variations of the story as preserved in the oldest known version, that of the old Irish _Fled Bricrend_. [a]“The Legend of Sir Gawain,” Grimm Library, Vol. VII. (Chapter IX. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). But in no other version is the incident coupled with that of a temptation and testing of the hero’s honour and chastity, such as meets us here. At first sight one is inclined to assign the episode of the lady of the castle to the class of stories of which the oldest version is preserved in Biblical record—the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife; a _motif_ not unseldom employed by mediæval writers, and which notably occurs in what we may call the _Launfal_ group of stories. But there are certain points which may make us hesitate as to whether in its first conception the tale was really one of this class. It must be noted that here the lady is acting throughout with the knowledge and consent of the husband, an important point of difference. In the second place, it is very doubtful whether her entire attitude was not a _ruse_. From the Green Knight’s words to Gawain when he finally reveals himself, “I wot we shall soon make peace with my wife, who was thy bitter enemy,” her conduct hardly seems to have been prompted by real passion. In my _Studies on the Legend of Sir Gawain_, already referred to, I have suggested that the character of the lady here is, perhaps, a reminiscence of that of the Queen of the Magic Castle or Isle, daughter or niece of an enchanter, who at an early stage of Gawain’s story was undoubtedly his love. I think it not impossible that she was an integral part of the tale as first told, and her rôle here was determined by that which she originally played. In most versions of the story she has dropped out altogether. It is, of course, possible that, there being but a confused reminiscence of the original tale, her share _may_ have been modified by the influence of the _Launfal_ group; but I should prefer to explain the episode on the whole as a somewhat distorted survival of an original feature. But in any case we may be thankful for this, that the author of the most important English metrical romance dealing with Arthurian legend faithfully adheres to the original conception of Gawain’s character, as drawn before the monkish lovers of edification laid their ruthless hands on his legend, and turned the model of knightly virtues and courtesy into a mere vulgar libertine.