“He must have some exercise to delay my men, they are so long away,” said the knight. “Let three hundred more heroes go for his heart, with the liver and lights, and bring them here to me.”
The second three hundred went, and as they were entering the chamber, Lawn Dyarrig was making a heap of them, till the last one was inside, where there were two heaps.
“He has some way of coaxing my men to delay,” said the knight. “Do you go now, three hundred of my savage hirelings, and bring him.”
The three hundred savage hirelings went, and Lawn Dyarrig let every man of them enter before he raised a hand, then he caught the bulkiest of them all by the two ankles and began to wallop the others with him, and he walloped them till he drove the life out of the two hundred and ninety-nine. The bulkiest one was worn to the shin bones that Lawn Dyarrig held in his two hands. The Green Knight, who thought Lawn Dyarrig was coaxing the men, called out then, “Come down, my men, and take dinner!”
“I’ll be with you,” said Lawn Dyarrig, “and have the best food in the house, and I’ll have the best bed in the house. God not be good to you for it, either.”
He went down to the Green Knight and took the food from before him and put it before himself. Then he took the lady, set her on his own knee, and he and she went on eating. After dinner he put his finger under her girdle, took her to the best chamber in the castle, and remained there till morning. Before dawn the lady said to Lawn Dyarrig,—
“If the Green Knight strikes the pole of combat first, he’ll win the day; if you strike first, you’ll win, if you do what I tell you. The Green Knight has so much enchantment that if he sees it is going against him the battle is, he’ll rise like a fog in the air, come down in the same form, strike you, and make a green stone of you. When yourself and himself are going out to fight in the morning, cut a sod a perch long in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; you’ll leave the sod on the next little hillock you meet. When the Green Knight is coming down and is ready to strike, give him a blow with the sod; you’ll make a green stone of him.”
As early as the dawn Lawn Dyarrig rose and struck the pole of combat. The blow that he gave did not leave calf, foal, lamb, kid, or child waiting for birth, without turning them five times to the left and five times to the right.
“What do you want?” asked the knight.