Each of these three books is written from the Medieval perspective of a Catholic faith demanding heroic action and courtesy in the world, in imitation of Christ our Master. J.R.R. Tolkien’s complete familiarity with these works made them a kind of canvas from which he drew forth the high virtues of his own Lord of the Rings. Beowulf shows how the heroic virtues of the Norse and Germanic war bands found their true fulfillment in the following of Christian heroism. Beowulf fights both a descendant of Cain and a dragon that represents the power of Satan on earth. Le Morte D’Arthur is the Englishman Mallory’s collection and harmonization of tales told of Arthur throughout Europe.

The book is too long for us to read entire, so we will look at the bones of the great story of founding a Catholic Kingdom, based on chivalrous and holy defense of the weak and on using strength for good. Ultimately it becomes both the story of the search for holiness in looking for the Holy Grail—the cup of the Last Supper—and a story of how all great nations fall because of personal sin—the tangled tale of holiness and falling that Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot enact. Finally the most elegant of Arthurian tales, Gawain and the Green Knight, shows how all men must be willing gaily to leave the beautiful world that God has given them, in imitation of Jesus himself. We will see how courtesy and heroism must be found together. Our basic question will be, who is the Green Knight, and how will we ourselves meet him just as surely as Gawain did? An answer is guaranteed.