and its walls, matted with weeds and moss,

enclosed a cavity, like a kind of old cave

or crevice in the crag – it was all too unclear to

declare.

‘Green church?’ chunters the knight.

‘More like the devil’s lair

where, at the nub of night,

he makes his morning prayer.’

‘For certain‚’ he says, ‘this is a soulless spot,

a ghostly cathedral overgrown with grass, 2190

the kind of kirk where that camouflaged man

might deal in devilment and all things dark.

My five senses inform me that Satan himself

has tricked me in this tryst, intending to destroy me.

This is a haunted house – may it go to hell.

I never came across a church so cursed.’

With head helmeted and lance in hand

he scrambled to the skylight of that strange abyss.

Then he heard on the hillside, from behind a hard rock

and beyond the brook, a blood-chilling noise. 2200

What! It cannoned through the cliffs as if they might crack,

like the scream of a scythe being ground on a stone.

What! It whined and wailed, like a waterwheel.

What! It rasped and rang, raw on the ear.

‘My God,’ cried Gawain, ‘That grinding is a greeting.

My arrival is honoured with the honing of an axe

up there.

Then let the Lord decide.

“Oh well” won’t help me here.

I might well lose my life 2210

but freak sounds hold no fear.’

Then Gawain called as loudly as his lungs would allow,

‘Who has power in this place to honour his pact?

Because good Gawain now walks on this ground.

Whoever will meet him should emerge this moment

and he needs to be fast – it’s now or it’s never.’

‘Abide,’ came a voice from above the bank.

‘You’ll cop what’s coming to you quickly enough.’

Yet he went at his work, whetting the blade,

not showing until it was sharpened and stropped. 2220

Then out of the crags he comes through the cave-mouth,

whirling into view with a wondrous weapon,

a Danish-style axe for doling out death,

with a brute of a blade curving back to the haft

filed on a stone, a four-footer at least

by the look of the length of its shining lace.

And again he was green, like a year ago,

with green hair and flesh and a fully green face,

and firmly on green feet he came stomping forward,

the handle of that axe like a staff in his hand. 2230

At the edge of the water he will not wade

but vaults the stream with the shaft, and strides

with an ominous face onto earth covered over

with snow.

Our brave knight bowed, his head

hung low – but not too low!

‘Young sir,’ the green man said,

‘Your visit keeps your vow.’

The green knight spoke again, ‘God guard you, Gawain.

Welcome to my world after all your wandering. 2240

You have timed your arrival like a true traveller

to begin this business which binds us together.