A postcard from the Wirral
Drawn to the peninsula’s big tides and even bigger skies, we followed in the hoofprints of an Arthurian knight.
When a mysterious green knight arrives at Camelot, young Gawain is the only one of Arthur’s retinue brave (or foolish) enough to accept his challenge: strike him with his axe, but take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain beheads the green knight, who then stands, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of their deal.
The story of Gawain’s quest to meet the knight at the Green Chapel is told in a 14th-century poem by an unknown author. During the tale, Gawain crosses the Dee Estuary from Wales and lands on the Wirral peninsula, an area the poet describes as a ‘wilderness’:
In þe wyldrenesse of Wyrale; wonde þere bot lyte
Þ at aþuer God oþer gome with goud hert louied
In the wilderness of Wirral dwelt there but few
That either God or man with good heart loved.
When the tide falls, you can imagine how this place might have felt back then. Vast. Forbidding. But we were not slogging across a wilderness towards our fate. Our quest was a little different from Gawain’s: a few days of exploring on foot and by public transport from Meols. Wandering and eating ice creams.