Falcon

With the exception of Beowulf, the most famous tale in English medieval literature is probably Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In its original telling, it was a tale of impossible challenge, heroic pledge, and steadfast knighthood. It took the listener/reader through Gawain's initial encounter with a mysterious knight in green, his arrival at the castle of Sir Bertilek, a near seduction, and the final, harrowing encounter. Falcon expands that original story. Drawing on Sir Thomas Mallory's great 15th century stories of King Arthur, it adds Gawain's yearlong, fearful expectation of doom and the yearlong revenge machinations of Arthur's half-sister and mortal enemy, Morgan le Fey. It is the same 14th century tale greatly enlarged in meaning; now a story of sorcery and religion, chivalry and will-to-live, self-doubt, and the loss of all.
In Falcon, we see the world of Arthur's fellowship, its gatherings and banquets, the colliding melee of Camelot's annual tournament at Pentecost, and the tale telling of knights returned from quests. We see Gawain's nightlong vigil to enter the fellowship of the Round Table and his emerging uncertainty about knighthood's virtue. We see Morgan's slow manipulation of Merlin and use of ancient texts to grow in sorcery, determined to destroy Arthur and the fellowship of the Round Table.
Falcon mingles details of the Arthurian Round Table world with modern ideas of self doubt and feminine self-possession, the uncertain link of religion and magic, and the questioning impact of experience. Arthur, born of rape and murder, becomes a questionable chivalric hero. Morgan nurtures an affinity with the falcons of her father's weathering yard. Gawain learns about knighthood's shortcomings and the bothersome confusion of seeing things as they are.