Complex sentence: Following her instructions to search for a nearby castle by a ford, Gawain encounters a knight who tells him that he is either very brave or foolish, for everyone who has tried to cross the perilous ford between them had drowned.
Split into simpler sentences: Following her instructions to search for a nearby castle, Gawain encountered a knight. The knight told him that he was either very brave or foolish, for everyone who tried to cross the perilous ford between them had drowned.