Arthur and the others must worry about Gawain's well-being. In the English poem, Gawaine agrees to the charade merely to save his opponent's face. But in the First Perceval Continuation, the life of the Riche Sodoier's fiancee is at stake, because, he says, if the girl he loves knows that he has been defeated, she will die of grief. Further parallels Parallels can be found in medieval Arthurian literature, medieval romance and in Welsh mythology. In particular, the motif of reciprocity is widespread in early British literature. Alliterative Morte Arthure In the late-14th century Middle English poem known as the Alliterative Morte Arthure, based upon an episode in Geoffrey of Monmouth's mid-twelfth century Historia Regum Britanniae, King Arthur travels with an army across France in order to meet a Roman army sent against him. He encounters this army in France, defeats and kills its commander, sending the army back to Rome in disarray, along with the bodies of sixty of the chief senators of Rome, and reaches Tuscany (an area of Italy to the immediate south of the ancient region of Cisalpine Gaul) before news reaches him of Mordred's treachery, prompting an inauspicious and premature return.The Knightly tale of Gologras and Gawain, also, has King Arthur fighting in France and leading an army towards Tuscany: "In the tyme of Arthur, as trew men me tald / The King turnit on ane tyde towart Tuskane, / Hym to seik ovr the sey, that saiklese was sald, / The syre that sendis all seill, suthly to sane." ("In the time of Arthur, as honest men have told me, the king set off one day for Tuscany, to seek Our Lord over the sea who was betrayed and died for us, our benevolent Father in all truthfulness.") Sir Gawain and the Green Knight In addition to the episodes described above, the First Continuation of Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval includes a scene in which a magician, who is the father of a knight of the Round Table, Sir Carados, enters King Arthur's court and invites one of the king's knights to cut off his head, promising that the knight can cut off his head afterwards. This is done, and a token blow received in return. The episode is very similar to one composed two hundred years later in Middle English alliterative verse, the opening scene of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight found in