Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with its intricate plot of enchantment and self-betrayal, is one of the greatest stories of Arthurian legend. Composed in the fourteenth century by an anonymous English poet, it tells how Sir Gawain accepts a challenge from the mysterious green knight which involves a sinister game of beheading and temptation. The poem embraces a great variety of moods and modes - from the stark realism of the hunt scenes to the delicious and dangerous bedroom encounters between Sir Gawain and the lady of the castle, from moments of pure lyric beauty evoking the English countryside in all its seasons, to authorial asides that are full of irony and wry humour. This verse translation uses a modern alliterative pattern which subtly echoes the music of the original at the same time as it strives for fidelity.