breaking his best hounds with its back-snapping bite

when it stood embattled … then bowmen would strike,

goading it to gallop into open ground

where the air was alive with the huntsmen’s arrows.

That boar made the best men flinch and bolt,

till at last his legs were like lead beneath him,

and he hobbled away to hunker in a hole

by a stony rise at the side of a stream. 1570

With the bank at his back he scrapes and burrows,

frothing and foaming foully at the mouth,

whetting his white tusks. The hunters waited,

irked by the effort of aiming from afar

but daunted by the danger of daring to venture

too near.

So many men before

had fallen prey. They feared

that fierce and frenzied boar

whose tusks could slash and tear. 1580

Till his lordship hacks up, urging on his horse,

spots the swine at standstill encircled by men,

then handsomely dismounts and unhands his horse,

brandishes a bright sword and goes bounding onwards,

wades through the water to where the beast waits.

Aware that the man was wafting a weapon

the hog’s hairs stood on end, and its howling grunt

made the fellows there fear for their master’s fate.

Then the boar burst forward, bounded at the lord,

so that beast and hunter both went bundling 1590

into white water, and the swine came off worst,

because the moment they clashed the man found his mark,

knifing the boar’s neck, nailing his prey,

hammering it to the hilt, bursting the hog’s heart.

Screaming, it was swept downstream, almost slipping

beneath.

At least a hundred hounds

latch on with tearing teeth.

Then, dragged to drier ground,

the dogs complete its death. 1600

The kill was blown on many blaring bugles

and the unhurt hunters hollered and whooped.

The chief amongst them, in charge of the chase,

commanded the bloodhounds to bay at the boar,

then one who was wise in woodland ways

began carefully to cut and carve up the carcass.

First he hacks off its head and hoists it aloft,

then roughly rives it right along the spine;

he gouges out the guts and grills them over coals,

and blended with bread they are titbits for the bloodhounds. 1610

Next he fetches out the fillets of glimmering flesh

and retrieves the intestines in time-honoured style,

then the two sides are stitched together intact

and proudly displayed on a strong pole.

So with the swine swinging they swagger home,

bearing the boar’s head before that huntsman

who had fought with his fists in the ford till the beast

was slain.

The day then dragged, it seemed,

before he found Gawain, 1620

who comes when called, most keen

to countenance the claim.

Now the lord is loud with words and laughter

and speaks excitedly when he sees Sir Gawain;

he calls for the ladies plus the company of the court

and he shows off the meat slabs and shares the story

of the hog’s hulking hugeness, and the full horror