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The Numpties are child-minding in California and the the temperature outdoors rose to 114°F as we worked our way through the Somniloquist’s offering. We felt more like somnambulists; I believe he is a new setter but what a debut!

But does the Somniloquist qualify for the Listener setters’ oenophile outfit? Well, I scanned his very dense clues, admiring the subtlety but not finding much evidence of alcohol unless we count ‘Begin once treats assembled (6)’ (which gave TREATS* = ASTERT) or the effect of those ‘treats’, which seemed to plaster the locals, ‘Support sound local plastering (7)’ which gave a word that was new for me, TEE + RING = TEERING. Fortunately there was the Napoleon in the last clue (which was also the last we solved) ‘Napoleon perhaps loses head after Jack hewed (4)’ Frankly rubbish as a surface reading [Isn’t that rather harsh? Ed.] but it gave us J(ack) + COIN less C = JOIN or ‘wed’, and the last two letters of that line of poetry. Well it’s quality stuff, le Napoléon, so ‘Santé, Somniloquist, see you at the bar in Paris?

Those kisses didn’t tell us much at first as we couldn’t see how they were going to lead to any exchanges. “It must be that we are going to remove one, two, or three letters from each of the down clues in order to produce that line of poetry.” said the other Numpty, as it proved to be. However, it was rather a long way into our solve and we had found the FOX – ‘Fine for Abe’s second in fight (3)’ BOX with F for (A)B(e), the BOAR – ‘Old Russian aristocrat expels unknown (4)’ BOYAR less Y, and the DEER – ‘Captain out of crucial game (4)’ DECIDER less CID = DEER – before vague memories of a text I have taught in years gone by (and remember as being tough and not half so much fun as Chaucer) surfaced. Something about one kiss being the reward for the head of an innocent slaughtered deer, two kisses for a fierce wild boar and three for the cunning fox [Obviously some sexual Middle English innuendo there; Ed.] So the title made sense.

We had already looked up Fox and Boar and found that it was a fable by Aesop but that didn’t seem relevant to a set of kisses or to the strange FAYRE HEDE that was emerging from the letters that we were extracting in order to produce meaningful clues. We had solved almost every clue and entered all the down ones and a fair number of the acrosses before the penny (or the head) dropped. THE FAYRE HEDE FRO THE HALCE HIT TO THE ERTHE. Simply lower the head of all those across clues that we had laboriously been entering as jumbles!

There was an even bigger thump as the final hede hit the earth. All those letters that we were lowering, in their clue order, spelled THE GREEN KNIGHT; what did the others spell? SIR GAWAIN, of course; so that was what that word ‘initial’ was doing in the preamble.

Grid full and quotation found but we had a rather strange clash of RHO and AT TABLE and that strange requirement that the quotation to be entered below the grid was to be 32 letters and not 36. One answer was to resolve this issue and, of course, it was THORN.

Hares in danger of decapitation.

All that was left to do was confirm, that Poat’s HARE is still frolicking in preambles, clues, grids or setters’ pseudonyms and there was a complete guddle of hares misbehaving at the centre-top of the grid – in fact the grid was full of the beasts (I am surprised they didn’t live in fear of being decapitated for a kiss as, according to Google, the hare, with the fox the boar and the deer, was the object of venery in the fourteenth century).

What an impressive amount of thematic material! Great setting, thank you, Somniloquist.

OK, so this setter talks in his/her sleep! Most things said while you’re asleep tend to be somewhat gibberish, but this is the Listener, so I was sure that didn’t apply here. [Hold that thought¹. Ed.] And I wondered at first what expletives had been deleted in the title!

There were three wordplay-only clues, so they should be easy to spot. [Another thought² to hold. Ed.] Across answers, initially relating to two thematic characters, had their answers entered to reflect their fate. Down clues needed amendment before solving to reveal a line from a poem.

Although they were to be solved without amendment, I didn’t get that many acrosses on my first pass. I should have got 1 Greeted old girl, then married, having ditched idiot (6) [SUE + UNITED – NIT], although it was a bit more understandable that 5 Vehicle cost round about 11 cents (7) [TAB around A XI C] eluded me. 39 Fine for Abe’s second in fight (3) also remained unsolved. [Told you². Ed.]

I tackled the down clues with trepidation. Actually, in hindsight, I should have been wary of entering the across entries that I had since they had to be entered to reflect a fate. The first down clue I got, helped by the first E of INTERRED was 4 Captain out of crucial game (4), with just wordplay for DE(CID)ER.

However, 7 Mental images aid circle literate in arts (5) IDOLS was the first to indicate that a letter had to be dropped, aid becoming id. Returning to 1dn Stand-off Barton leaves fellow club member (9), I guessed that Barton became baron to give STA(B)LEMATE. I was helped with this having recently had an American sitcom explain the difference between stalemate, impasse and Mexican stand-off.

Not for the first time this year, I had the feeling that a new setter was in fact an old hand in disguise. The clues were generally tough, even when I realised that the title of the puzzle indicated that 1, 2 or 3 letters needed to be expunged from the down clues before they could be solved. For example 6dn Cut [f]rom promo in clever backing tracks (9) led to RO(M) AD in SMART<.

Fast forward to a finished grid, although fast was certainly not an adjective to describe my solve. The wordplay-only entries were FOX, DEER and BOAR, and I initially thought that we were dealing with one of Aesop’s fables. Nothing sprang to mind, or to Google for that matter.

I had finally sussed that some of the across answers had to be entered with their first letter misplaced. Those letters spelt out The Green Knight, whereas the unmisplaced first letters spelt out Sir Gawain. Meanwhile the single clash between 9ac RHO and 9dn AT TABLE was TH or þ, as hinted at by 29dn THORN.

This finally explained why the quotation did indeed look like gibberish. [Told you¹. Ed.] The letters redacted from the down clues gave The fayre hede fro the halce hit to the erthe and it looked very Chaucerian. In fact, it was from an anonymous 14th century scribe in a poem called, not surprisingly, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight . The devices used in this puzzle relate to Sir Gawain’s beheading of the Green Knight (who promptly stands up and puts his head under his arm), and the three animals hunted by Bertilak de Hautdesert and given to Sir Gawain in exchange for 1, 2 and 3 kisses which Sir Gawain has received from Lady Bertilak. Bertilak is in fact the Green Knight in disguise. The kisses are another interpretation of the title.

Of course, I had to track down the full text of the poem. I cannot now recall how I finally found it, but the University of Toronto web site has a copy, line 427 being our quotation to be entered in olde English form: “þe fayre hede fro þe halce hit to þe erþe”. (Another lucky escape for me this week: as I was about to fill in the quotation from my working copy, I realised that I had it starting “þhe fayre hede…” with an extra “h”.)

What an innovative puzzle from Somniloquist, thanks. It was a marvellous piece of grid construction with some tough clues to go with it.