The knight-at-arms is an armored figure who appears entirely out of place in his current state of illness and abandonment. Though historically a figure of valor and purpose, he currently suffers from an unexplained physical wasting, marked by a fading rosy flush and fever-sweat on his brow. He recounts a vivid tale of his encounter with a supernatural woman in the meadows, detailing a rapid transition from joyful vitality to a despairing limbo.

A mysterious, otherworldly woman whom the knight meets in the wild. She exhibits a mixture of supreme beauty, maternal nurture, and untamed grace, captivating the knight entirely. She communicates in an unknown language and provides the knight with strange, sweet foods like wild honey and manna-dew, ultimately leading him to her secluded elfin cave where she weeps over an unnamed sorrow.

The anonymous speaker is an observer wandering near a barren lakeside where the grass has withered. Noting the dying vegetation and the sudden absence of birdsong, the speaker acts as a catalyst by questioning the forlorn knight-at-arms about his distress and physical decline. The speaker serves as a stand-in for the reader, prompting the knight to share his strange tale.

A host of ghostly, sick-looking kings, knights, and princes who appear in the knight-at-arms's nightmare. They share the same deathly pallor as the knight himself. They have starved lips that stretch open in the gloom to deliver an urgent, collective warning about the mysterious lady's merciless nature.