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Also there came the Blue Knight, brother to them, and his hundred knights, and yielded themselves. These three brethren told King Arthur how they were overcome by a knight that a damsel had with her, and called him Fair-hands.
By this time Sir Launcelot had come up, and Fair-hands offered to joust with him. So they rushed together like boars, and for upwards of an hour they had a hard fight, wherein Sir Launcelot had so much ado with Fair-hands that he feared himself to be shamed. At length he said, "Fair-hands, fight not so sore; your quarrel and mine is not so great but we may leave off."
Thus as they rode along in the wood, there came a man flying all that ever he might. "Whither wilt thou?" said Fair-hands. "O lord," he said, "help me, for yonder in a dell are six thieves that have taken my lord and bound him, and I am afeard lest they will slay him." So Fair-hands rode with the man until they came to where the knight lay bound, and the thieves hard by.
Anon he and Fair-hands prepared themselves and rode against one another that both their spears were shattered to pieces, and their horses fell dead to the earth. Then they fought two hours and more on foot, until their armour was all hewn to pieces, and in many places they were wounded.
With these words Fair-hands came before the King, while the damsel was there, and thus he said: "Sir King, God reward you, I have been these twelve months in your kitchen, and have had my full sustenance, and now I will ask my two gifts that be behind." "Ask upon my peril," said the King. "Sir, these shall be my two gifts.
With that came the damsel and said, "My lord, the Green Knight, why for shame stand ye so long fighting with the kitchen-knave? Alas, it is shame that ever ye were made knight, to see such a lad match such a knight, as if the weed overgrew the corn." Therewith the Green Knight was ashamed, and gave a great stroke of might, and clave Fair-hands' shield through.
Also they told how the fourth brother, the Black Knight, was slain in an encounter with Sir Fair-hands, and of the adventure with the two brethren that kept the passage of the water; and ever more King Arthur marvelled who the knight might be that was in his kitchen a twelvemonth and that Sir Kay in scorn named Fair-hands.
Then they went to battle again, and thus they endured till even-song time, and none that beheld them might know whether was like to win. Then by assent of them both they granted either other to rest; and so they sat down on two molehills, and unlaced their helms to take the cool wind. Then Sir Fair-hands looked up at the window, and there he saw the fair lady, Dame Liones.
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