manicle

[Footnotes:] impossible: Gawain clearly considers his pledge to be as binding as an oath.

gauntlets: strictly speaking, manicles would in this case be chainmail mittens.

One implication of “deliverance” is release from the bondage of the mind, nicely summed up by William Blake's “mindforg'd manicles” (102). When the mind is unaware of its enslavement, emancipation is impossible.