But the buck was fierce, and would have gored him with its horns, but Perceval seized them, and after a great struggle he threw the animal, and held it down, and in his wrath he would have slain it with a sharp stick. With that a swarm of little angry trolls poured from the hollow hillocks with great cries, and seizing Perceval would have hurt him.
But suddenly Tod ran among them, and commanded them to release him. And in the end Tod, who came himself of the troll folk, made the little people pass the words of peace and friendship with Perceval, and ever after that the boy went with the trolls, and sported with them in wrestling, running and other games; and he learned many things of great wisdom from them concerning the secrets of the earth and air and the wind, and the spirits that haunt waste places and standing stones, and how to put to naught the power of witches and wizards.
Tod ever bade them treat the young lord with reverence. 'For this is he who shall do great deeds,' he said. 'He shall be a stainless knight, who shall gain from evil the greatest strength, and, if God wills, he shall beat down the evil powers in this land.'
But the lad knew not what he meant, though he was very content to have the trolls for his friends.
One day Perceval was in the forest far up the mountain, and he looked over the blue distance far below across the moor, and saw a man riding on a wide road which he had never noticed before. And the man rode very fast, and as he went the sun seemed to flash from him as if he was clothed in glass. Perceval wondered what he was, and resolved to go across the moor to the road he had seen.
When he reached the road he found it was very broad, and banked on either side, and went straight as the flight of a wild duck right across the moor, and never swerved by the hills or pools, but went over everything in its way. And as he stood marvelling what mighty men had builded it, he heard a strange rattling sound behind him, and, turning, he saw three men on horseback, and the sun shone from them as he had seen it shine from the first horseman.
The foremost checked his horse beside Perceval, and said:
'Tell me, good soul, sawest thou a knight pass this way either this day or yesterday?'
'I know not what a knight is,' answered Perceval.
'Such a one as I,' said the horseman, smiling good-naturedly, for it was Sir Owen, one of King Arthur's knights.