Chessboard of the Castle of Wonders

The Chessboard of the Castle of Wonders is an enchanted object whose self-moving pieces turn Peredur’s brief visit to the Castle of Wonders into a sequence of escalating challenges. Its loss matters not only because it belongs to the Empress of Cristinobyl the Great, but because Peredur’s attempt to recover it leads him into a conflict between mercy and the harm caused by leaving a dangerous opponent alive.

Appearance and First Encounter

At the Castle of Wonders, Peredur finds the entrance and hall doors open and sees the chessmen playing against one another without human players. The pieces’ independence makes the board more than a passive game: it stages a contest on its own, and its outcome provokes a response from Peredur. The side he favors loses, and the opposing pieces shout as if they were living men.

Wroth at the result, Peredur gathers the chessmen into his lap and casts the board into the lake. The act is sudden and consequential: the enchanted game has not harmed him, but his anger destroys an object the Empress prizes above all her empire. The black maiden identifies the board’s loss as an injury to the Empress and makes its recovery the condition of Peredur’s next undertaking.

The Attempt to Recover the Board

The black maiden directs Peredur to the Castle of Ysbidinongyl, where a black man is laying waste to the Empress’s dominions. She presents the man’s death as the means by which the chessboard may be recovered, while warning that Peredur will not return alive if he goes there. Peredur nevertheless travels to the castle and fights the black man.

When his opponent asks for mercy, Peredur spares him on the condition that he restore the chessboard to the place where Peredur found it. The maiden then rebukes Peredur for allowing a threat to the Empress’s lands to live. She tells him the board has not been returned and orders him to go back and slay the man. Peredur does so. The episode makes the board’s recovery a motive for action, but also exposes the limits of a bargain that leaves the wider danger untouched.

From Lost Board to Further Trials

On returning to the palace, Peredur still does not find the Empress. The black maiden tells him that he will not see her unless he kills a stag in the forest. She describes the animal as swift, armed with a long, sharp horn, destructive to the forest’s trees and creatures, and able to drink the fish-pond dry each night. The board’s loss has thus opened onto further demands within the Empress’s dominions, rather than producing an immediate restoration or audience.

The maiden supplies the Empress’s little dog to rouse and guide the stag. Peredur lets the animal pass him and then strikes off its head. A mounted lady arrives, takes the dog into the lappet of her cap, and objects that Peredur has killed the fairest jewel in her lands. She directs him onward to a grove and a further challenge. This continuation confirms that the chessboard initiates a chain of tests, but the passage does not say that the board is restored or that Peredur reaches the Empress.

Narrative Function

The chessboard’s enchantment is established through a visible marvel—the pieces move and shout without players—while its importance is established through the black maiden’s account of the Empress’s loss. The object therefore links wonder to obligation: Peredur first treats the game as an affront and discards it, then must pursue a recovery whose terms lead him into successive confrontations.

The recovery plot also complicates Peredur’s conduct. He initially chooses mercy, seeking to make the black man responsible for returning the board; the maiden insists that this choice leaves the Empress’s lands exposed. Peredur reverses course and kills him, yet the account moves on without confirming that the chessboard has been recovered. The object’s fate remains open in the narrated episode, while its loss has already redirected Peredur’s journey.