‘Are you pleased with this pile? Have I won your praise?

Does my skill at this sport deserve your esteem?’ 1380

‘Why yes‚’ said the other. ‘It’s the hugest haul

I have seen, out of season, for several years.’

‘And I give it all to you, Gawain,’ said the master,

‘for according to our contract it is yours to claim.’

‘Just so,’ said Gawain, ‘and I’ll say the same,

for whatever I’ve won within these walls

such gains will be graciously given to you.’

So he held out his arms and hugged the lord

and kissed him in the kindliest way he could.

‘You’re welcome to my winnings – to my one profit, 1390

though I’d gladly have given you any greater prize.’

‘I’m grateful,’ said the lord, ‘and Gawain, this gift

would carry more weight if you cared to confess

by what wit you won it. And when. And where.’

‘That wasn’t our pact,’ he replied. ‘So don’t pry.

You’ll be given nothing greater, the agreement we have

holds good!’

They laugh aloud and trade

wise words which match their mood.

When supper’s meal is made 1400

they dine on dainty food.

Later, they lounged by the lord’s fire,

and were served unstintingly with subtle wines

and agreed to the game again next morning

and to play by the rules already in place:

any takings to be traded between the two men

at night when they met, no matter what the merchandise.

They concurred on this contract in front of the court,

and drank on the deal, and went on drinking

till late, when they took their leave at last, 1410

and every person present disappeared to bed.

By the third cackle of the crowing cock

the lord and his liegemen are leaping from their beds,

and Mass and the morning meal are taken,

and riders are rigged out ready to run as

day dawns.

They leave the levels, loud

with howling hunting horns.

The huntsmen loose the hounds

through thickets and through thorns. 1420

Soon they picked up a scent at the side of a swamp

and the hounds which first found it were urged ahead

by a wild-voiced hunter and his wailing words.

The pack responded with vigour and pace,

alert to the trail, forty lurchers at least.

Then such a raucous din rose up all around them

it ricocheted and rang through the rocky slopes.

The hounds were mushed with hollers and the horn,

then suddenly they swerved and swarmed together

in a wood, between a pool and a precipice. 1430

On a mound, near a cliff, on the margins of a marsh

where toppled stones lay scattered and strewn

they coursed towards their quarry with huntsmen close at heel.

Then a crew of them ringed the hillock and the cliff,

until they were certain that inside their circle

was the beast whose being the bloodhounds had sensed.

Then they riled the creature with their rowdy ruckus,

and suddenly he breaks the barrier of beaters –