The source of the smoke he sought speedily, crossed himself safely with certain words, and going to the side he caught sight of the fiend as she said, unseemly

supping alone. He lay at full length reposing foully, the thigh of a man's limb he lifted up by the haunch, his back and the lower parts and his broad loins he baked at the dreadful fire, and he was breechless: there were roasting full rudely dreadful meats of men and cattle bound together, a large pot crammed with anointed children, some spitted like birds, and women turned them.

And then this comely king's heart was sorely grieved because of his people at the place where he stood. Then he girded on his shield and hesitates no longer, he brandishes his bright sword by its bright hilt, goes forth to the fiend with a rough determination, and loudly hails that giant with fierce words:

"Now may Almighty God that ruleth us all give thee sorrow and trouble, thou glutton, that liest there for the foulest monster that was ever formed—foully thou feedest thyself—the devil take thy soul! Here is unclean quarry, fellow, by my troth—refuse of all creatures—thou cursed wretch, because thou hast killed anointed children thou hast made martyrs and taken away the lives of those who are broached here on spits in this place and slaughtered by thy hand. I shall work thee thy punishment as thou greatly deservest, by the might of St. Michael who guardeth this mountain: and for this fair lady that thou hast left dead; gird thyself, thou son of a dog, the devil take thy soul, for thou shalt die to-day through the force of my arm."

Then was the glutton dismayed and glared unseemly; he grinned like a greyhound with grisly teeth; he

gaped and groaned aloud with grievous gestures for wrath with the good king who spake to him in anger. His hair and his forelock were matted together and hung before his face for about half a foot. His brow and forehead were all like the skin of a frog and seemed freckled, hooknosed like a hawk and a fierce bird, and hairy round his hollow eyes with overhanging brows: rough as a dog-fish—hardly could he be seen, so was he hid in that mass of hair: ears he had full huge and ugly to see, with horrible eyes and burning withal: flat-mouthed like a flounder with grinning lips, and the flesh in his front teeth as foul as a bear. His beard was rough and black and reached to his breast, fat like a porpoise with a huge carcass, and flesh still hung in shreds from his foul lips. Bull necked was that giant and broad of shoulders, with a streaked breast like a boar with long bristles. Rough arms like oak-branches with gnarled sides—limbs and loins right hateful to see, believe ye in truth; shovel-footed was that man and he seemed to straddle, with unshapely shanks shuffling together: thick thighs like a giant and thicker in the haunch—fat as a hog, full terrible he looked. Whoever might reckon faithfully the full length of this man, from the face to the foot, he was five fathoms long.

Then he started up sturdily on two stiff shanks and soon caught up a club of bright iron. He would have killed the king with his keen weapon, but through the wisdom of Christ, the carle failed. The crest and the coronal and the silver clasps cleanly with his club he crashed down to the earth.

The king raises his shield and covers himself completely, and with his fierce weapon reaches him a blow, right full in the face he struck him so that the burnished blade reached to his brains—he wiped his face with his foul hands and strikes fast at Arthur's face fiercely thereafter. The king changes his foot and withdraws a little; had he not escaped that blow he had fared evil; he follows up fiercely and strikes a blow high up on the haunch with his hard weapon, that half a foot of the weapon is hidden in the flesh: the monster's hot blood runs down the hilt; even to the entrails he strikes the giant.

Then he groaned and he roared and roughly strikes full eagerly at Arthur, and on the earth strikes a sword's length within the sward, he smites at once so that the king nearly swooned from the force of his blow. But yet the king nimbly and swiftly strives, he smites with the sword so that it gashed the giant's loins; and the blood gushes out so that it makes all the ground slimy on which he stands.