A relatively short and popular tale, The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle is another of the Loathly Lady tradition tales that crop up in several Middle English texts, most notably in Chaucer's the Wife of Bath's Tale. In this version of the tale, King Arthur, while out hunting, is caught unarmed by a heavily armed enemy knight,who makes Arthur swear to return later, still unarmed, with an answer to a riddle, what women really want. Arthur returns and, hoping to aid his lord in any way possible, Gawain assists him in surveying the country with answers to this question, filling two books. Upon returning they both feel these answers are insufficient, and heavily inconsistent, so they leave again. On this excursion, Arthur comes across a hideous woman who promises him the answer needed to save his life in exchange for Gawain's hand in marriage. Gawain agrees to this, without seeing the lady, and her answer does indeed save Arthur's life.
At this point in the text, Dame Ragnelle takes a more prominent and disruptive role in the text. Rather than being escorted back to court in secret for a private marriage ceremony, Dame Ragnelle insists on a public presentation to the court and subsequent wedding to Gawain. At the following feast, the court is put off by Ragnelle's grotesque appearance and extreme appetite, despite her remarkably expensive clothing and, aside from appetite, close adherence to courtly behavior. On the wedding night, Ragnelle insists upon her sexual dues from Gawain, and when he turns to see her she is miraculously a beautiful woman.
From here, the text has some interesting characteristics. The choice that Ragnelle offers Gawain is that she can either be beautiful at night and ugly by day or ugly at night and beautiful by day. Gawain waffles over his choice as the duration of her beauty markedly changes her role as his wife. If Ragnelle is beautiful at night, Gawain's sexual responsibilities to her are markedly improved, but if she is beautiful by day she adds to his social standing. As in other Loathly Lady tales, Gawain eventually returns the choice to her, promising her sovereignty in this choice but also of his wealth: "Evyn
as ye wolle, I putt itt in your hand. / Lose me
when ye lyst, for I am bond; / I putt
the choyse in you. / Bothe
body and goodes, hartt, and every dele, / Ys alle
your oun, for to by and selle - / That
make I God avowe!" (679-684). It is interesting that here Gawain equates the choice of how her bodily assets shall be divided as an economic decision, largely suggesting that even the Loathly Lady is a sexual commodity, however she is apparently granted sovereignty. In fact, even this arrangement fails to last, as she only lives as Gawain's wife for five years before dying of undisclosed causes, leaving Gawain free to have several more marriages. After all, we wouldn't want Arthur's premier knight locked into a marriage that kept him under someone else's authority would we?
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