Round Valley is a secluded landscape of meadows, woods, rocky boundaries, and a castle, but its apparent pastoral order conceals a deadly stronghold: the surrounding black houses belong to giants who rise against strangers. Peredur's survival of their assault turns the valley from a place where no Christian has been known to leave alive into a territory brought into homage to Arthur and the Christian faith.

Landscape and Approach

Peredur reaches the valley after travelling along a mountain ridge. Its circular form is defined by rocky, wooded confines; meadows occupy the level ground, with fields between the open land and the trees. Within the wood stand large black houses of uncouth workmanship, a first sign that the apparently open countryside is governed by a hostile population.

The approach itself is guarded by a chained lion. It sleeps on a rocky ledge above an immense pit filled with human and animal bones. Peredur strikes the lion with his sword, knocking it over the edge, then breaks its chain with a second blow. The lion falls into the pit, clearing the narrow route through which Peredur leads his horse into the valley. The passage makes the danger of entry visible before he reaches the castle: the bones mark the cost of previous encounters, while the animal chained above them serves as the threshold's living sentinel.

The Castle and Its Household

At the valley's centre Peredur finds a fair castle and a huge grey man seated in the meadow. Two young pages, one red-haired and the other auburn-haired, are shooting the hilts of their bone daggers. When the grey man rebukes his porter, Peredur understands that the lion had guarded the entrance. He follows the grey man and the pages into the castle, whose noble interior stands in striking contrast to the rough black houses scattered through the wood.

An aged woman and a young woman join the household at the meal. The young woman is the grey man's daughter; seated beside Peredur, she looks on him sorrowfully and tells him why. The giants living in the black houses are her father's vassals, and they will gather the following day to kill him. She nevertheless loves Peredur and tries to help him survive, arranging for his horse and arms to be kept in the same lodging as he sleeps. The aged woman and the daughter later ask the grey man to accept Peredur's promise not to disclose what he has seen, but he refuses to spare him on those terms.

The Siege and Its Terms

At dawn a great tumult of men and horses surrounds the castle. Peredur arms himself and his horse, goes out to the meadow, and fights the assembled host. By evening he has killed one-third of them without receiving a wound. The aged woman again urges the grey man to grant mercy, but he refuses. From the battlements, she and the daughter watch Peredur meet the grey man's sons: he kills the red-haired youth and then the auburn-haired one.

Only after the deaths of his sons does the grey man yield. He asks the daughter to seek mercy for him and for the surviving vassals. Peredur grants it on conditions that reshape the valley's political and religious allegiance: the grey man and his people must pay homage to Arthur and report that Arthur's vassal Peredur has performed this service. They must also receive baptism. Peredur asks Arthur to grant the valley to the daughter and her heirs; the people agree to the terms.

Settlement and Significance

The next morning the grey man and his company travel to Arthur's court, where they render homage and are baptized. The grey man identifies Peredur as the man who vanquished them, and Arthur grants him and his company the right to hold Round Valley under his authority, as Peredur had requested. The grey man then returns to the valley with Arthur's permission. The settlement does not erase the local household or remove its inhabitants; it incorporates them into Arthur's dominion under new obligations.

That political outcome completes Peredur's victory without making it a simple extermination of his opponents. He has killed the armed resistance and the grey man's two sons, yet spares the surviving host once its leader submits. The valley's earlier reputation is voiced by the grey man himself: since possessing it, he says, he has seen no Christian depart alive except Peredur. Peredur, for his part, gives thanks that he has not broken his vow to Angharad Law Eurawc, whom he loves best, by speaking to a Christian. Round Valley thus joins a test of arms to a test of silence, and its conquest ends in homage, baptism, and a grant confirmed by Arthur.