Gawain and Ywain Leave Arthur’s Court

Gawain and Ywain leave King Arthur’s court together after Arthur dismisses Ywain on suspicion that he is involved in Morgan le Fay’s attempts against the king. Gawain refuses to separate himself from his cousin: he announces that Ywain’s banishment will be his own as well. Their departure costs Arthur two knights and shifts the scene from a threatened royal court to the forest, where the cousins encounter twelve maidens, two armed knights, and a white shield treated with contempt.

The Order Against Ywain

The immediate cause is Arthur’s response to a failed plot against him. After the enchanted mantle brought by a messenger from his sister proves deadly to the woman who attempts to wear it, Arthur says that Morgan le Fay is continually seeking to betray him. He distinguishes between King Uriens, whom he excuses because Accolon had confessed that Morgan intended to destroy him too, and Uriens’s son Ywain, whom he continues to suspect. Arthur therefore orders Uriens to put Ywain out of court, and Ywain is dismissed.

The order rests on suspicion rather than a stated finding that Ywain participated in the plots. Its consequence is nevertheless decisive: the king’s judgment directly removes a knight from his household, and the question of loyalty becomes a test of family allegiance.

Gawain’s Decision and the Court’s Loss

When Gawain learns that Ywain has been banished, he says, “Who so banisheth my cousin german shall banish me.” He makes no separate defense of Ywain in the reported exchange; instead, he binds his own place at court to his cousin’s. The wording turns Arthur’s order into a choice Gawain claims for himself: the king may dismiss Ywain, but Gawain will not remain as though that dismissal leaves their kinship untouched.

The cousins ride out together and find lodging at an abbey. Their departure is noticed immediately. Gaheris observes that the court has “lost two good knights for the love of one,” framing the consequence as a loss to Arthur’s fellowship as well as an act of family solidarity. The episode does not report a reconciliation or reversal of the banishment; the two knights continue on from the abbey into the forest.

The White Shield in the Forest

On the following morning, after hearing mass, Gawain and Ywain ride onward. In a valley by a small tower, they see twelve fair maidens and two knights mounted on great horses. A white shield hangs from a tree, and the maidens go past it spitting on it or throwing mud at it. The cousins’ departure thus leads directly into a new encounter organized around an unexplained public affront. The scene supplies the immediate setting for the next adventure, but this passage does not identify the shield’s owner or explain the maidens’ grievance.

Kinship, Suspicion, and Royal Authority

The episode sets the authority of the king against the obligations of kin. Arthur acts to protect himself after Morgan’s plots, yet Ywain’s dismissal is grounded in suspicion; Gawain answers not by challenging the king’s right to command, but by refusing to accept the personal cost of that command for his cousin alone. Their ride away makes the division visible, while Gaheris’s remark measures its political price in lost service.

This departure also sits within a court shaped by overlapping family claims. Ywain is the son of Uriens, and Gawain identifies him as his cousin; Arthur’s accusation reaches into the kin network represented at court. In the episode’s narrow but consequential turn, suspicion directed at one knight produces a second departure, carrying two members of the fellowship out of the king’s household and into the forest.