I shall swear by God and all his good saints,

and on all earthly holiness, and other such oaths,

that your secret is safe, and not a soul will know

that you fled in fear from the fellow I described.’

‘Many thanks,’ said Gawain, in a terse tone of voice,

‘and for having my interests at heart, be lucky.

I’m certain such a secret would be silent in your keep.

But as faithful as you are, if I failed to find him

and lost my mettle in the manner you mentioned, 2130

I’d be christened a coward, and could not be excused.

So I’ll trek to the chapel and take my chances,

have it out with that ogre, speak openly to him,

whether fairness or foulness follows, however fate

behaves.

He may be stout and stern

and standing armed with stave,

but those who strive to serve

our Lord, our Lord will save.’

‘By Mary,’ said the servant, ‘you seem to be saying 2140

you’re hell-bent on heaping harm on yourself

and losing your life, so I’ll delay you no longer.

Set your helmet on your head and your lance in your hand

and ride a route through that rocky ravine

till you’re brought to the bottom of that foreboding valley,

then look towards a glade a little to the left

and you’ll see in the clearing the site itself,

and the hulking superhuman who inhabits the place.

Now God bless and goodbye, brave Sir Gawain;

for all the wealth in the world I wouldn’t walk with you 2150

or go further in this forest by a single footstep.’

With a wrench on the reins he reeled around

and heel-kicked the horse as hard as he could,

and was gone from Gawain, galloping hard

for home.

‘By Christ, I will not cry,’

announced the knight, ‘or groan.

But find good fortune by

the grace of God alone.’

Then he presses ahead, picks up a path, 2160

enters a steep-sided grove on his steed

then goes by and by to the bottom of a gorge

where he wonders and watches – it looks a wild place:

no sign of a settlement anywhere to be seen

but heady heights to both halves of the valley

and set with sabre-toothed stones of such sharpness

no cloud in the sky could escape unscratched.

He stalls and halts, holds the horse still,

glances side to side to glimpse the green chapel

but sees no such thing, which he thinks is strange, 2170

except at mid-distance what might be a mound,

a sort of bald knoll on the bank of a brook

where fell-water surged with frenzied force,

bursting with bubbles as if it had boiled.

He heels the horse, heads for that mound,

grounds himself gracefully and tethers Gringolet,

looping the reins to the limb of a lime.

Then he strides forward and circles the feature,

baffled as to what that bizarre hill could be:

it had a hole at one end and at either side, 2180