[All]: The beginning of the poem must have introduced Plácitus as a righteous pagan in the service of the Emperor Trajan, and told of the stag hunt that Plácitus and other men undertook, during which he became isolated from the others and confronted a hart larger than the rest of the herd with a crucifix between its horns, which revealed itself as a manifestation of Christ. In the prose texts, Christ’s indication that Plácitus must be tried like Job comes after his baptism and his return to meet the Christ-hart for a second time (see sts 7-10).