Sir Carados, a handsome and powerful young knight of King Arthur’s court, has spent his life effortlessly progressing from triumph to triumph until the day he foolishly accepts a challenge from a mysterious giant who has barged into Camelot’s Christmas celebration: to deliver an axe blow to the giant’s head now and then meekly submit to the giant’s return blow in exactly one year. But when Carados watches the decapitated giant stand back up after being struck with an axe and mount its severed head back on its body, he knows he is doomed to die in a year’s time and must undergo a series of adventures to test whether he will have the strength and courage to keep his oath to submit to the reciprocal blow.

But unlike Sir Gawain in the famous poem about his encounter with the Green Knight, it is far from clear that Carados will maintain his honor and resist the temptation to flee from his impending fate. As he struggles with the sudden futility of his soon to be cut short life, Carados slides into greater depths of violence and cruelty.