The first in the Green Knight's Squire trilogy.
Gil, just thrown out of school, is asleep in a park when a raven wakes him. He learns that magic is afoot with all sorts of people walking their sleep, but he manages to take refuge in an abandoned church, with the help of a monk named Francis.
He escapes his refuge with the help of a wren, after a deal where he offers it some of his hair -- though he does complain that people tend to disbelieve him when he says he knows something because a little bird told him.
He goes home, meets with the stray dog Ruff who's rather attached to him, and confesses all to his mother. Who questions him about his experience and declares that he must leave and not spend another night under her roof, but win his living through honest labor. This is interesting when he has no birth certificate, and he doesn't know if honest labor has to be legal.
He talks with Ruff about becoming a knight, and sets out in the wood. His adventures from there include meeting a distant cousin, payment in honey, showing respect to a king that his own knights don't, wild men of the woods, a Christmas tree's making a noble sacrifice, instruction from a bear, getting arrested, and more.
