Which knight is the hero of the poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'?

The hero of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is Sir Gawain.

The late-14th-century Middle English romance follows Gawain, a nephew of King Arthur, after he accepts a supernatural challenge at Camelot. The Green Knight offers to receive one axe blow in exchange for returning the stroke a year and a day later. Gawain beheads him, but the mysterious knight survives, retrieves his head, and summons Gawain to the Green Chapel.

Gawain’s journey tests more than courage. At a castle, its lord proposes an exchange-of-winnings game while the lord’s wife tests Gawain’s courtesy and chastity. Gawain accepts a supposedly protective green girdle but conceals it, compromising the promise he made. The Green Knight then reveals that the entire adventure was a moral test, engineered through magic.

The anonymous poem survives in a single manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x., alongside Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. It contains 2,530 lines in 101 stanzas and is famous for its alliterative verse, including the distinctive “bob and wheel” endings. The Green Knight is the challenger; Gawain is the tested hero.