finish reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl and Sir Orfeo

It seems that most of the things that bothered me have gotten an expalanation in retrospect. I will not elaborate, in order not to spoil it for the masses who will run and get the book, I will only say that the one thing that is still weird, is Gawain’s naivette. The things that bothered me when reading, should have bothered him too.
On to Pearl – the second poem.

as a kid, I used to love the stories about the knights of the round table. Now,upon reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I wonder if it was always like this and I just never noticed because I was too young. I mean:
Do people build fortresses with high walls and dig trenches around them just in order to let any wondering guest in?
Do they then go out and leave the guest alone with their wife? They must trust her, which proves wrong, or they must really trust a stranger (which proves right, of course).
Does the wife of the host really not understand why her guest wouldn’t sleep with her?
In what world does someone tell you: this item is magical and it will protect you, and you simply take it to be true?
All this seemed pretty natural to me as a kid, but not now. Well, it’s a world where things like that just happen. Take it or leave it. I take it, but it’s an effort.

Wow, so many descriptions of clothes and food, was that man completely strait? Well, here is the influence. The author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight goes on and on about clothes and food, especially colthes. And it’s all a translation from very-very-old-English to very-old-English, at least for a Hebrew speaker like myself it seems so. Takes patience. Good thing I have it! 8)