As the first day of the tournament between Meliant of Liz and Tibaut of Tintagel was winding down, a very tall, bald-headed squire came out to collect booty from the battlefield. One of the ladies mockingly called him a fool for trying to plunder broken equipment from the thick of things, advising him instead to appropriate the fresh horses and gear of the strange knight who had sat the day out watching peacably from beneath a tree in the meadow.
This knight was Gawaine, who had arrived by chance and abstained from hazarding himself in the tourney because he had more important personal business elsewhere. Replying to the squire’s rather rude words in kind, Gawaine soon sent him packing without revealing his own identity or what his business was.