Beheading game

The beheading game is a literary trope found in Irish mythology and medieval chivalric romance. The trope consists of a stranger who arrives at a royal court and challenges a hero to an exchange of blows: the hero may decapitate the stranger, but the stranger may then inflict the same wound upon the hero. The supernatural nature of the stranger, which makes this possible, is only revealed when he retrieves his severed head. When the hero submits himself to the return blow, he is rewarded for his valor and is left with only a minor wound. The hero is seen as coming of age by undergoing the exchange of blows, and his symbolic death and rebirth is represented by the feigned return blow.

Originating in the Irish legend of the Fled Bricrenn, the beheading game appears in several Arthurian romances, most notably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The version of the game found in the latter work has been analyzed for its relationship with the Arthurian concept of chivalry. At no point does the Green Knight specify that he must be beheaded, only that he will return whatever blow is struck. When Gawain makes the impulsive decision to decapitate the Knight, the values of Camelot require that he subject himself to death in the name of upholding the rules of the challenge. Gawain is incapable of bravely submitting to death, instead concealing a magic girdle that he believes will keep him from harm, thus demonstrating that he values survival over honour.