This quest poem opens with narrator Childe Roland, a knight in search of the fabled Dark Tower, confronting a "hoary cripple" who he suspects is lying to him. The weird old man points Roland off the dusty road into an "ominous" plain, telling him that he will find the dark tower in that direction.Despite his suspicions, Roland heads off into the plain, convincing himself that though the quest inevitably means failure and death, he has committed to it and is thus duty-bound to see it through. Part of his justification for persevering is a perverse pride to join "the Band" who have failed before him, other knights who died as he plans to do.