foliating

the green belt

Today I’ve been completing Gawain’s armour, layering in the green belt of the wife of Bertilak de Hautdesert… a significant gift from the married woman to the handsome young knight… that he wears tied as a sash across his chest.

…

…

The nick to his neck was healed by now;

thereabouts he had bound the belt like a baldric -

slantwise, as a sash, from shoulder to side,

laced in a knot looped below his left arm,

a sign that his honour was stained by sin.

.

From Simon Armitage’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

(Faber and Faber, 2007)

…

Above: on my desk birds and flowers are being assembled ready for composing the foliate ground behind Gawain.