Every one said:
"Yes, yes."
Dinarzade swallowed down a rolled pancake, burning himself as he did so.
"This Green Knight, gentlemen, as you know, since you have seen him, was very good-looking: when the wind blew back his ruddy locks over his casque, it looked like a twist of tow round a green turban."
The audience: "Bravo!"
Dinarzade's tales.
"One evening in May, he sounded his horn at the draw-bridge of a castle in Picardy, or Auvergne, no matter which. In that castle lived "the Lady of Great Companies." She welcomed the knight, told her servants to disarm him and lead him to the bath, and came and sat with him at a splendid table; and the pages-in-waiting were mute."
The audience: "Oh, oh!"
"The lady, gentlemen, was tall, flat, lean, and shambling, like the major's wife; otherwise she had plenty of expression and an arch look. When she laughed and showed her long teeth beneath her stumpy nose, one did not know what one was about. She fell in love with the knight and the knight with her, although he was afraid of her."
Dinarzade emptied the ashes of his pipe on the rim of the wheel and wanted to refill his cutty; they made him continue: "The Green Knight, utterly dumfoundered, resolved to leave the castle; but, before taking his leave, he asked the lady of the keep for an explanation of many strange things; at the same time he made her an offer of marriage, always provided she was not a witch."