It happened one day that Girflet had been badly wounded in a tournament; as he rode home, his wound became so painful that he needed to stop and rest. He had been riding close to a river, so he left his squire and his horse and began to remove his armor in order to bathe his wounded leg, hoping to ease the pain. As he began to wash, he saw a marvelous thing. A ship was sailing towards him. Its pure white sails were made of silk, and its ropes glinted as if spun with silver. At its prow was the figure of an ivory woman, exquisitely beautiful, with two whole sapphires for her eyes.

A noble knight in those times never refused an adventure; filled with wonder, Girflet climbed aboard. There was no one on the deck, which shone as if no foot had ever trod there. Girflet could hear nothing but the gentle lapping of the water and a slight creak of timbers. Going below, he was amazed to find a bed, laid with the most expensive covers, all in various hues of white, cream and ivory, with white lace curtains hanging from the posts. The top coverlet was embroidered all over with delicate cobwebs and snowflakes of the finest silver thread. Girflet was afraid to stay there, lest the blood from his wound should spoil the bed's perfect whiteness, but, against his will, a great weariness overcame him and he dropped down, laying his head upon the lacy pillow.

When he woke, he found the ship had carried him to a place he had never seen before. Great willow trees bent down to embrace the water on each side, and the prow of the ship cut a path through hundreds of white lilies. By the bank of the river stood a palace, the like of which Girflet had scarcely imagined in his dreams. Its walls were made of the purest, smoothest marble and seemed to shine in the rays of the sun. Many tall turrets pointed to the heavens, and the breeze caught banners embroidered with the same cobweb and snowflake emblems that had covered him while he slept. He rubbed his eyes, but the palace remained.

Stepping ashore, he went towards the palace, expecting at any moment to be met by some servant or other, perhaps a guard or a laborer working the surrounding fields, but none appeared. Instead, the mighty gates swung open for him, and he went inside alone. Instantly, he jumped with surprise at the sight of a whole host of knights apparently standing guard all along the walls. But a moment's thought told him this was just an illusion. The walls were in fact made entirely of mirrors from floor to ceiling, so all he could see as he went along was his own image, constantly repeated and reflected. Girflet was deeply intrigued and began to explore the baffling palace, hoping to find its master.

Soon he came to a large central chamber in the shape of a dodecagon, the walls of which were paneled with twelve huge and magnificent mirrors, expertly gilded with silver. The floor was ebony, with a great silver cobweb traced into it; a line from the center extended to the center of each mirror. The whole chamber was lit by a pale and changeable light, yet there was not a single window to be found. Looking around, Girflet suddenly gasped with horror. The reflections in these mirrors were not of him but of twelve handsome young lords, each one more handsome than the next. They were all dressed in tunics of black with silver snowflakes at their hearts, and their melting eyes were filled with sorrow.

"Who are you?" Girflet said.

He hardly expected them to reply; yet the words left his mouth and echoed round the eerie chamber.

"We are the prisoners of the Ivory Maid," the youngest and most handsome lord said, his voice seeming to come from the depths of the earth. "One by one, she enticed and entrapped us. Now we are slaves in her chamber of mirrors. Every night she stands at the center of the cobweb and gazes at us for hours at a time. We know neither warmth nor touch nor conversation. All is cold within the gaze of her sapphire eyes."

"Is there no way you can be freed?" Girflet said.

"There is but one way," the second most handsome lord replied, his eyes as gray as the stormy sea. "This ebony chamber has never seen the sun. It is lit only by the magical light of its snowflake ceiling. Were the sun to shine on us, then these mirrors would break and we should be free. For they cannot be broken by any other means, neither by fists nor by stones nor by the weight of a battleaxe."

Girflet pondered this for a while. He did not see how, alone, wounded and weaponless, he could break through the roof of solid marble to let in the sun. But he could not bear to think that such noble lords of men should be kept prisoner in this manner and never know the warmth of love or fellowship. So he said, "I am at your service, my lords. I will do what I can."

And he left the chamber to find a way to the roof.

The palace was large and extremely puzzling. Girflet wandered through corridors, up and down staircases, in and out of rooms of various dimensions, baffled and confused by the constant reflections. He was tired and a little sick. His leg ached. He began to wonder if the Ivory Maid really existed, as there was no sign of her or indeed of any life at all in the palace. All was silent, and he saw no one but himself. At last, when he was on the verge of giving up hope, he came to a winding staircase leading out onto marble battlements and began, precariously, to cross the roof of the palace. The sun was at its full height, and he could hear the singing of birds in the trees below him. He blinked several times to try to cope with the light, after the dim paleness of the palace corridors, but the sun and the height and the earlier loss of blood made him dizzy; despite being a knight of Logres, he was forced to sit down in the nearest available space. Suddenly, his bandaged wound burst open again. The blood seeped through his clothes and dripped onto the marble rooftop, a dark pool of red against the spotless white. As Girflet watched helplessly, his warm blood began to sink into the marble, melting its coldness. Deeper and deeper it went, until the first single drop of blood fell to the ebony floor of the chamber of mirrors, right in the center of the silver web.

At that moment, the rays of the sun shone through the tiny hole in the ceiling and glanced off one mirror after another. With a resounding crash, the glass shattered, and the twelve young lords leaped free of their prisons. Laughing and clasping one another's hands in the sunlight, they shouted their thanks to Girflet, promising each to reward him with great treasure when they reached home. Then they ran through the mirrored corridors and into the free air where swift horses awaited them.

Girflet listened to their footsteps and youthful shouts echoing away. Then he slowly crossed the roof and came down the stairs, dragging his wounded leg behind him. As he did so, he heard the faint sound of a woman weeping. He followed the sound and found it came from a tiny room at the top of a turret. Gently opening the door, Girflet saw, seated by the window, a maiden dressed from head to foot in purest white, with a silver belt and a veil of lace covering her long hair. Tears spilled from her clear blue eyes, rolling down her cheeks and dripping onto her skirts as she turned and looked towards Girflet.

"Alas, what have you done to me, sir knight?" she said. "The beauty of my house is overthrown. My mirrors are broken, and my lords are now fled, whose like I shall never see again as long as I live."

And she wept again. Girflet thought her exceedingly beautiful, more beautiful than any lady he had ever seen in his life. In his heart he pitied her, in spite of what she had done, because she was so young and so sad; although he knew nothing of the arts of love, he longed to see her smile and to fill her palace with warmth, where yet there had been only coldness. So he said, "Though I am neither as young nor as handsome as they were, and though I am a knight only and not a lord, yet I will stay a while and help rebuild your house for you, to make amends for what I have done."

He knelt before her and held out his hand. And the tears of the Ivory Maid dropped onto his hand and his knee, glistening like silver.

And at that moment, his wound was healed.