ACT III
_The Hall of Justice. It is nearly dawn. The last
of the Princes is getting in through the window.
They are wearing their masks_.
_Ogre: (Outside door to left.)_ Open now the door
for myself.
_1st Prince_: No, we will get rid of him now. Let
the Grugach stay outside.
_2nd Prince_: That will be best. He cannot
break the bars of this door, or get round over the
high wall to the door on the other side.
_3rd Prince_: I am sore with the blows he put on
us, driving us before him through the wood.
_4th Prince_: Let us call to the Guardian, and let
him deal with him. He can bring his foot soldiers
and his guns.
_5th Prince_: A villain that Ogre is and a thief,
wanting to steal away the golden-handled sword.
But we would not tell him where it was, and he
never will find it under the step of the Judge's
chair. (_Lifts top of step, takes out sword and puts it
back again_.)
_Ogre: (Outside.)_ Are ye going to open the door?
_1st Prince_: It is a great thing to have that
strong door between us.
_2nd Prince_: Take care would he break it in.
_3rd Prince_: No fear. It would make too much
noise. It would bring every person in the house
running.
_4th Prince_: Let us go quick and call the
Guardian.
_5th Prince_: What will he _say_ seeing us in these
clothes? He will be vexed with us.
_1st Prince_: It was folly of us running away.
But he will forgive us, knowing it will teach us
better sense.
_2nd Prince_: Come to him then, I don't mind
what he will do to us so long as we are safe from
the terrible Grugach of an Ogre. (_All go to right
door, it opens and Ogre bursts in_.)
_Ogre_: Ye thought to deceive me, did ye? Ye
thought to bar me out and to keep me out? And
I after minding you and caring you these seven
years!
_3rd Prince_: What way did you get in?
_Ogre_: It's easy for me to get in any place. If
I had a mind I could turn into a house fly and come
through the lockhole of the door. It's much if I
don't change the whole lot of ye into small birds,
and myself to a hawk going through you! Or, into
frightened mice, and I myself into a starving cat!
It's much if I don't skin you with this whip, and
grind your bones as fine as rape seed!
_4th Prince_: I will call for help! (_Tries to shout_.)
_Ogre: (Putting hand over his mouth and lifting
whip.)_ Shout now and welcome, and it is bare
bones will be left of you! If it wasn't that I need
you to search out the golden-handled sword for me
I'd throttle the whole of ye as easy as I'd squeeze
an egg! Come on now! Show me where the
treasure is hid.
_5th Prince_: How would we know?
_Ogre_: Didn't I send ye spying it out, and if it
fails ye to make it out, I'll boil and bake you!
_1st Prince: (Looking about and pointing to end
of room_.) It might be there.
_Ogre_: What way would it be on the bare floor?
Search it out.
_2nd Prince: (Looking under a bench_.) It might
be here.
_Ogre_: It is not there.
_3rd Prince: (Looking up chimney_?) This would
be a good hiding-place.
_Ogre: (Looks up_.) There is nothing in it, only
an old nest of a jackdaw,--a bundle of bare twigs.
Trying to deceive me you are and to lead me astray.
_4th Prince_: It might be on the shelf.
_Ogre_: Stop your chat unless you have something
worth saying.
_5th Prince: (Sitting down on step under which
sword is hidden_.) Are you certain there is any
treasure at all?
_Ogre_: You are humbugging and making a fool
of me! _(Lashes whip and seizes him_.) Get up
now out of that! _(Drags him up and taps board.)
_ There is a hollow sort of a sound.... That is
a sort of place where a treasure might be hid.
_(Drags up board_.) I see something shining. _(Pulls
out sword_.) Oh, it is a lovely sword! And the
handle of pure gold. The best I ever seen!
_1st Prince: (To the others_.) I'll make a run now
and call out and awaken all in the house! _(Is going
towards door_.)
_Ogre: (Seizing him_.) You'd make your escape
would you?
_1st Prince: (Calling out_.) Ring the big bell,
ring the bell! I forgot it till now.
(_They pull a bell-rope and bell is beard clanging_.)
_Ogre: (Rushing at them as they ring it_.) I'll stop
that!
_(Voices are heard, at door to right. Ogre rushes to other door_.)
_2nd Prince_: I'll get the sword from him. _(Snatches
it away as Ogre is rushing at him. Servant and
Guardian come in_.)
_Guardian_: What is going on! (_Blows a whistle_.)
Here, soldiers of the guard!
_(Feet are heard marching and bugle blowing at
left door. Ogre rapidly slips off his mask,
and appears as a harmless old man.)_
_Guardian:_ Thieves! Robbers! Burglars!
Here, soldiers, surround the place; who are these
ruffians? Murder! Robbery! Fire!
_(Two soldiers come in_.)
_Servant_: They are the very same youngsters
were at our door this morning, doing their play;
those Wrenboys!
_Guardian_: They are thieves. There is one of
them bringing away my gold-handled sword. _(He
and Servant seize sword_.)
_Ogre: (Coming forward and bowing low_.) It
is time for you to come, your honour my lordship!
I am proud to see you coming! It was I myself
that rang the bell and that called and awakened
you, where I would not like to see the place robbed
and left bare by these scum of the world!
_All the Princes_: Oh! Oh! Oh!
_Guardian_: What have you to do with it?
Where do you come from?
_Ogre_: An honest poor man I am....
_Servant_: You have a queer wild sort of a
dress.
_Ogre_: Making a living I do be, dressing up as a
hobgoblin and a bogey man to get an odd copper
from a mother here and there, would be wishful to
frighten a stubborn child from bawling or from
tricks. Passing the door I was, and hearing a noise
I looked in, and these young villains were after
rising a board and taking out that sword you seen
in their hands. It is then that I made a clamour
with the bell.
(_Princes laugh_.)
_Guardian_: Who are they at all?
_Ogre_: It is I myself say it; they are the terror
of the whole district.
_1st Prince_: You may save your breath and stop
that talk. This gentleman knows us well. He
knows us and will recognise us.
_Guardian_: I do recognise you. I saw you but
yesterday.
_2nd Prince_: There now, what do you say?
_Guardian_: You are those vagabond Wrenboys
that came tricking and begging to my gate.
_Princes_: Oh! Oh! Oh!
_Ogre_: That's it! Spying round they were!
Thinking to do a robbery! Robbery they're after
doing!
_3rd Prince_: We were doing no such thing!
_Guardian_: You were! I stopped you making
off with my sword of Justice.
_Ogre_: If it wasn't for me hindering them they
would have it swept.
_Guardian_: That was very honest of you.
_4th Prince_: (_Rushing at Ogre_.) It is you that
are a rogue and a thief!
_Other Princes_: Throw him down while we have
the chance. (_They surround him_.)
_Guardian_: Silence! Don't make that disturbance!
I felt a suspicion yesterday the first
time I saw your faces there was villainy hidden
beneath the dust that was on your cheeks.
_4th Prince_: Listen to us, listen!
_Guardian_: And whatever I thought then, you
are seventeen times more wicked looking now!
And the very scum of the roads!
_5th Prince_: Oh, have you forgotten your
nurslings!
_Guardian: It_ is well you reminded me of them.
(_To Servant_.) Go now and bring the young Princes
here till they will see justice done! They are
maybe gone a bit wild and foolish since yesterday,
put out by those Dowager Messengers. But whatever
they were at their worst, they are King George
compared with these!
_1st Prince_: You _must_ listen!
_Guardian_: Must! What is that language!
That is a word was never said to me since I was
made the Queen's Chamberlain. Here! Put a
gag upon their mouths! (_Soldiers do so, tying a
handkerchief on mouth of each_.) Tie their hands
behind them with ropes. (_This is done_.) Rapscallions!
Do they think to terrify and command me!
I that am not only Governor of the Island but am
Supreme Judge whenever I come into this Court.
_Ogre_: That is very good and very right! Keep
the gag in their mouth! You wouldn't like to be
listening to the things they were saying a while
ago! They were giving out great impudence and
very disrespectful talk!
_Guardian_: Give me here my Judge's wig and
my gown! (_Puts them on_.) Where now are the
young Princes?
_Servant_: They are coming now.
_Guardian_: It will be a great help in their education
seeing justice done by me, as straight as was
ever done by Aristides. Give me here that book of
punishments and rewards. I'll see what is bad
enough for these lads! (_He consults book_.)
_Servant_: Here now are the Princes.
_(Wrenboys come in wearing Princes' clothes_)
_1st Wrenboy: (To another_) Do you see who it
is that is in it?
_2nd Wrenboy_: It is the young Princes in our
clothes!
_3rd Wrenboy_: What in the world wide brought
them here? Believe me it was through some
villainy of the Grugach.
_4th Wrenboy_: What at all has happened?
_5th Wrenboy_: Go ask them what it was brought
them, or what they came doing.
_1st Wrenboy: (To Princes_) What is it brought
you here so soon?
(_Princes shake their heads_)
_2nd Wrenboy: (Coming back_) There is a gag
on their mouths!
_3rd Wrenboy: (Going and looking_) Their hands
are tied with a rope.
_4th Wrenboy_: They had not the wit to stand
against the Grugach; it is not long till they were
brought to trouble.
_5th Wrenboy_: It was seventeen times worse
for them to be under him than for ourselves that
was used to him, and to his cruelty and his ways.
_1st Wrenboy_: It was bad enough for ourselves.
We were not built for roguery.
(_The Dowager Messengers rushing in_.)
_Dowager Messengers: (Together.)_ What is going
on? What has happened?
_Guardian_: What you see before you has happened.
Those young thieves came to try and to
rob the house. They were found by myself in the
very act of bringing away my golden-handled
sword! They were stopped by this honest man.
(_Points to Ogre_.)
_1st Dowager Messenger_: There would seem to be
a great deal of wickedness around this place!
_Guardian_: I'll put a stop to it! I'll use my
rights as Judge! To have that sort of villainy
running through the Island, it would come through
walls of glass or of marble, and lead away the best.
_2nd Dowager Messenger_: There must be something
gone wrong in the stars, our own young
princes having gone wild out of measure, and these
young vagabonds doing no less than house-breaking!
It is hard to live!
_Ogre_: Indeed, ma'am, it would be a great blessing
to the world if all the boys in it could be born
grown up.
_Guardian: (Sighing_.) I, myself, am beginning
to have that same opinion.
_1st Dowager Messenger_: And so am I myself.
Young men have strength and beauty, and old
men have knowledge and wisdom, but as to boys!
After what we saw a while ago in the supper
room!
_Servant_: The Court is about to sit! Take your
places!
_(Wrenboys make for the dock and Princes the
jury-box.)_
_Guardian_: What do you mean, prisoners, going
up there, that is the place for honourable men!
For a jury! It is here in the criminals' dock your
place is.
_Servant: (To Wrenboys_.) Oh, that is the wrong
place you're in. That is for the wicked and the
poor that are brought to be tried and condemned.
_1st Wrenboy_: It is a place the like of that I was
put one time I was charged before a magistrate
for snaring rabbits.
_Servant_: Silence in the Court. The Judge is
about to speak.
_Guardian: (Reading out of book.)_
It's laid down in a clause of the Cretian laws,
That were put through a filter by Solon,
That for theft the first time, though a capital crime
A criminal may keep his poll on.
Though _(consults another book_) some jurists believe
That a wretch who can thieve,
Has earned a full stop, not a colon.
_Ogre_: That was said by a better than Solon.
_Guardian_:
And the book says in sum, to cut off the left thumb,
May be penalty enough for a warning;
Though _(looks at another book_) the Commentors say
That one let off that way
Will be thieving again before morning.
_Ogre_: So he will, and the jury suborning.
_Guardian:_
For the second offence, as the crime's more immense,
Take the thumb off the _right_ hand instead;
And the third time he'll steal, without any appeal,
The hangman's to whip off his head.
_Ogre_:
Very right to do so, for a thief as we know,
Isn't likely to steal when he's dead.
_2nd Dowager Messenger_:
You won't order the worst, as this crime is the first,
It's a pity if they have to swing.
_Guardian_:
In the Commentors' sense, a _primal_ offence
Is as much an impossible thing
As a stream without source, a blow struck without
force,
Or leaves without roots in the spring.
_Ogre_: Or a catapult wanting a sling.
_Guardian_:
But although this case is proved on its face
To be what is called _a priori_
I cannot refuse to consider the views
Of the amiable lady before me. _(Bows to 2nd
Dowager Messenger.)_
In compliance to her I am ready to err
On the side that she leans to, of mercy,
For she has a kind tongue, and the prisoners are
young;
But that they may not live to curse me,
I give out my decree, the _left_ thumb shall be
Kept in Court till the next time they'll come.
And now if you please let whoever agrees
With my pledge turn down his own thumb.
_1st Dowager Messenger_: It is very just and right.
(_Turns down hers_.)
_Ogre_: You're letting them off too easy. They're
a bad example to the world. But to take the
thumb off them is better than nothing! _(Turns
down both his thumbs.)_
_Guardian: (To Wrenboys.)_ Well, my dear pupils,
I don't see you turn down your thumbs.
_1st Wrenboy_: We cannot do it. _(They cover
their faces with their hands.)_
_Ogre_: Get on so. I never saw the work I'd
sooner do than checking youngsters!
_Guardian_: Where is the Executioner?
_Servant_: I sent seeking him a while ago, thinking
he might be needed.
_Guardian_: Bring him in.
_Servant_: He is not in it. There was so little
business for him this long time under your own
peaceable rule, that he is after leaving us, and
taking a job in a slaughter house out in foreign.
_2nd Dowager Messenger_: Maybe that is a token
we should let them off.
_Ogre: (Briskly.)_ I am willing to be useful; give
me here a knife or a hatchet!
_Servant: (To Ogre.)_ You need not be pushing
yourself forward. _(To Guardian.)_ There is a
stranger of an Executioner chanced to be passing
the road, just as I sent out, and he looking for
work. He said he would do the job for a four-penny
bit and his dinner, that he is sitting down
to now.
_Guardian: (Sitting up straight and taking up sword.)_
Bring him in quick. It often seems a curious thing that I,
Who in my ordinary clothes would hardly hurt a fly,
Hold to the rigour of the law when I put on gown and wig,
As if for mere humanity I didn't care a fig.
For once I'm seated on the bench I do not shrink or flinch
From the reddest laws of Draco, or the practice of Judge Lynch.
_Servant: (At door.)_ Here he is now.
_(Jester comes in, disguised as Executioner, a
long cloak with hood over his head.)_
_Guardian_: Here is the sword _(hands it to him
and reads)_, "In case of the first act of theft the
left thumb is to be struck off." There are the
criminals before you. That is what you have to do.
_Jester: (Taking the sword.)_ Stretch out your
hands! There is hurry on me. I was sitting at
the dinner I engaged for. I was called away from
the first mouthful, and I would wish to go back
to the second mouthful that is getting cold.
_Guardian: (Relenting.)_ Maybe now the fright
would be enough to keep them from crimes from
this out. They are but young.
_Jester: (To Princes.)_ Don't be keeping me
waiting! Put out now your hands. _(They shake
their heads.)_
_Servant_: They cannot do that, being bound.
_Jester_: If you will not stretch out your hands
when I ask you, I will strike off your heads without
asking! _(Flourishes sword.)_
_Guardian: (Standing up.)_ I did not empower
you to go so far as that! It is without my
authority!
_Jester_: You have given over the power of the
law to the power of the sword. It must take its way!
_Guardian_: I will not give in to that! I have
all authority here!
_Jester_: If you grow wicked with the Judge's
wig on your head, so do I with this sword in my
hand! You called me in to do a certain business
and I am going to do it! I am not going to get a
bad name put on me for breach of contract! If
a labourer is given piece work cutting thistles with
a hook he is given leave to do it, or a rat catcher
doing away with vermin in the same way! He
is not bid after his trouble to let them go loose out
of his bag! And why would an Executioner that
is higher again in the profession be checked. Isn't
my pride in my work the same as theirs? And
along with that, let me tell you I belong to a
Trades Union!
_(Guardian moans and covers his face.)_
_(To the Princes.)_ Kneel down now! Where you
kept me so long waiting and that the Judge attempted
to interfere with me, I have my mind
made up to make an end of you! _(Holds up sword.)_
_1st Wrenboy: (Rushing forward and putting his
arms about Prince.)_ You must not touch him!
These lads never did any harm!
_2nd Wrenboy: (Protecting a Prince.)_ It is we
ourselves are to be punished if anyone must be
punished.
_3d Wrenboy_: They are innocent whoever is to
blame.
_Jester_: Take their place so! Someone must be
put an end to.
_(All the Wrenboys kneel.)_
_1st Wrenboy_: Here we are so. We changed
places with them for our own pleasure, thinking
to lead a prince's life, and if there is anyone must
suffer by reason of that change let it be ourselves.
_Jester_: I'll take off their gags so and let them free.
_(He cuts cord of gags and hands, then throws
some dust over all boys as before, saying):_
Dust of Mullein leave the eyes
You made fail to recognise
Princes in their poor disguise;
Princes all, had men clear eyes!
_(The Princes throw off their masks.)_
_1st Prince_: It is all a mistake! Oh, Guardian,
don't you know now that we are your murslings
and your wards! Look at the royal mark upon
our arm, that we brought with us into the world.
_(They turn up sleeves and show their arms.)_
_2nd Dowager Messenger_: I am satisfied without
looking at the royal sign. I have been looking at
their finger nails. Those other nails _(pointing to
Wrenboys)_ have never been touched with a soapy
brush.
_2nd Prince_: It is strange you did not recognise
us. It was that Jester yesterday when we changed
our coats that threw a dust of disguise between you
and us.
_1st Dowager Messenger_: Was it that these lads
robbed you of your clothes?
_3d. Prince_: Not at all.
_4th Prince_: We ourselves that were discontented
and wishful to change places with them.
_Guardian_: A very foolish thing, and that I have
never read of in any of my histories.
_5th Prince_: We were the first to wish the change.
It is we should be blamed.
_5th Wrenboy_: No, but put the blame on us!
The Wrenboys you seen yesterday.
_Guardian_: Ah, be quiet, how do I know who
you are, or if ever I saw you before! My poor
head is going round and round.
_1st Wrenboy_: Now do you know us! _(All recite
"The Wren, the Wren, the King of All Birds." Give
first verse.)_
_Guardian: (Stopping his ears.)_ Oh, stop it!
That makes my poor head worse again.
_2nd Wrenboy: (Pulling up sleeve.)_ If you had
chanced to see our right arm you would recognise
us. We were not without bringing a mark into
the world with us, if it is not royal itself.
_(Wrenboys strip their arms.)_
_1st Dowager Messenger_: What is he talking
about? _(Seizes arm and looks at it.)_
_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is the same mark as
is on the princes, the sign and token of a King!
_1st Dowager Messenger_: It is certain these must
be their five little royal cousins, that were stolen
away from the coast.
_1st Wrenboy_: If we were brought away it was
by that Grugach that has kept us in his service
through the years.
_2nd Dowager Messenger_: It is no wonder they
took to one another. It was easy to know by the
way they behaved they had in them royal blood.
_(The Boys turn to each other, the Ogre is
slipping out.)_
_Jester: (Throwing off his cloak and showing his
green ragged clothes.)_ Stop where you are!
_Ogre_: Do your best! You cannot hinder me!
I have spells could change the whole of ye to a
cairn of grey stones! _(Makes signs with his hands.)_
_Jester: (In a terrible voice.)_ Are you thinking
to try your spells against _mine_?
_Ogre: (Trembling and falling on his knees.)_ Oh,
spare me! Hold your hand! Do not use against
me your spells of life and death! I know you
now! I know you well through your ragged dress!
What are my spells beside yours? You the great
Master of all magic and all enchantments, Manannan,
Son of the Sea!
_Jester_: Yes, I am Manannan, that men are apt
to call a Jester and a Fool, and a Disturber, and a
Mischief-maker, upsetting the order of the world
and making confusion in its order and its ways.
_(Recites or sings.)_
For when I see a master
Hold back his hireling's fee
I shake my pepper castor
Into his sweetened tea!
And when I see a plan make
The Birds that watch us frown,
I come and toss the pancake
And turn it upside down!
In this I follow after
Lycurgus who was wise;
To the little god of laughter
I make my sacrifice!
And now here is my word of command! Everyone
into his right place!
_Ogre_: Spare me! Let me go this time!
_Jester_: Go out now! I will not bring a blemish
on this sword by striking off your ugly head. But
as you have been through seven years an enemy
to these young boys, keeping them in ignorance
and dirt, they that are sons of a king, I cross and
command you to go groping through holes and dirt
and darkness through three times seven years in
the shape of a rat, with every boy, high or low,
gentle or simple, your pursuer and your enemy.
And along with that I would recommend you to
keep out of the way of your own enchanted cats!
_(Ogre gives a squeal and creeps away on all fours.)_
_Guardian_: I think I will give up business and
go back to my old trade of Chamberlain and of
shutting out draughts from the Court. The
weight of years is coming on me, and it is time for
me to set my mind to some quiet path.
_1st Dowager Messenger_: Come home with us
so, and help us to attend to our cats, that they will
be able to destroy the rats of the world.
_2nd Dowager Messenger: (To Princes.)_ It is best
for you come to your Godmother's Court, as your
Guardian is showing the way.
_1st Prince_: We may come and give news of our
doings at the end of a year and a day.
But now we will go with our comrades to learn
their work and their play.
_2nd Prince_: For lying on silken cushions, or
stretched on a feathery bed.
We would long again for the path by the lake,
and the wild swans overhead.
_3d Prince_: Till we'll harden our bodies with
wrestling and get courage to stand in a fight.
_4th Prince_: And not to be blind in the woods
or in dread of the darkness of night.
_1st Wrenboy_: And we who are ignorant blockheads,
and never were reared to know
The art of the languaged poets, it's along with
you we will go.
_5th Prince_: Come show us the wisdom of woods,
and the way to outrun the wild deer,
Till we'll harden our minds with courage, and
be masters of hardship and fear.
_2nd Wrenboy_: But you are candles of knowledge,
and we'll give you no ease or peace,
Till you'll learn us manners and music, and news
of the Wars of Greece.
_1st Prince_: Come on, we will help one another,
and going together we'll find,
Joy with those great companions, Earth, Water,
Fire, and Wind. _(They join hands.)_
_Jester_: It's likely you'll do great actions, for
there is an ancient word,
That comradeship is better than the parting of
the sword,
And that if ever two natures should join and
grow into one,
They will do more together than the world has
ever done.
So now I've ended my business, and I'll go, for
my road is long,
But be sure the Jester will find you out, if ever
things go wrong!
_(He goes off singing.)_
And so I follow after
Lycurgus who was wise;
To the little god of laughter
I pay my sacrifice!
CURTAIN
NOTES FOR THE JESTER
I was asked one Christmas by a little schoolboy to write
a play that could be acted at school; and in looking for
a subject my memory went back to a story I had read in
childhood called "The Discontented Children," where,
though I forget its incidents, the gamekeeper's children
changed places for a while with the children of the Squire,
and I thought I might write something on these lines.
But my mind soon went miching as our people (and
Shakespeare) would say, and broke through the English
hedges into the unbounded wonder-world. Yet it did
not quite run out of reach of human types, for having found
some almost illegible notes, I see that at the first appearance
of Manannan I had put in brackets the initials "G.B.S."
And looking now at the story of that Great Jester, in the
history of the ancient gods, I see that for all his quips and
mischief and "tricks and wonders," he came when he
was needed to the help of Finn and the Fianna, and gave
good teaching to the boy-hero, Cuchulain; and I read
also that "all the food he would use would be a vessel of
sour milk or a few crab-apples. And there never was any
music sweeter than the music he used to be playing."
I have without leave borrowed a phrase from "The
Candle of Vision," written by my liberal fellow-countryman,
A.E., where he says, "I felt at times as one raised from
the dead, made virginal and pure, who renews exquisite
intimacies with the divine companions, with Earth, Water,
Air, and Fire." And I think he will forgive me for quoting
another passage now from the same book, for I think it
must have been in my mind when I wrote of my Wrenboys:
"The lands of Immortal Youth which flush with magic
the dreams of childhood, for most sink soon below far
horizons and do not again arise. For around childhood
gather the wizards of the darkness and they baptize it
and change its imagination of itself, as in the Arabian
tales of enchantment men were changed by sorcerers who
cried, 'Be thou beast or bird.' So ...is the imagination
of life about itself changed and one will think he is a worm
in the sight of Heaven, he who is but a god in exile....
What palaces they were born in, what dominions they are
rightly heir to, are concealed from them as in the fairy
tale the stolen prince lives obscurely among the swineherd.
Yet at times men do not remember, in dreams or in the
deeps of sleep, they still wear sceptre and diadem and
partake of the banquet of the gods."
The Wrenboys still come to our door at Coole on
St. Stephen's Day, as they used in my childhood to come
to Roxborough, but it is in our bargain that the wren
itself must be symbolic, unmolested, no longer killed in
vengeance for that one in the olden times that awakened
the sentinels of the enemy Danes by pecking at crumbs
on a drum. And, indeed, these last two or three years
the rhymes concerning that old history have been lessened,
and their place taken by "The Soldiers Song."
I think the staging of the play is easy. The Ogre's hut
may be but a shallow front scene, a curtain that can be
drawn away. The masks are such as might be used by
Wrenboys, little paper ones, such as one finds in a Christmas
cracker, held on with a bit of elastic, and would help to
get the change into the eyes of the audience, which
Manannan's Mullein-dust may not have reached.
Air: "Shule Aroon"
[Music]
Air: "Mo Bhuachailin Buidhe"
_Brightly_
[Music]
Air: "The Bells of Shandon"
My brain grows rus-ty, my mind is dus-ty
The time I'm dwelling with the like of ye; While my spirit
rang-es through all the changes could turn the
world to fel-is-it-y When Ar-is-tot-le
[Music]
The Time I've Lost in Wooing
_Poco allegretto_
[Music]
My Molly-O
[Music]
Air: "O Donall Abu"
[Music]
The Bard of Armagh
_Slow_.
[Music]
Air: "Dear Harp of My Country"
[Music]
I wish I had the shepherd's lamb
I wish I had the shep-herd's lamb, the shep-herd's lamb, the
shepherd's lamb, I wish I had the shepherd's lamb, And
Ka-tie com-ing af-ter: Iso o gur-rim
gur-rim hoo iso gra-ma-chree gon kel-lig hoo, Iso
o gur-rim gur-rim hoo, Sthoo pat-tha beg dho wau-her.
[Music]
Air: "Let Erin Remember"
[Music]
Air: "And doth not a meeting like this"
[Music]
Garryowen
_Quickly_.
[Music]
Air: "O Bay of Dublin"
[Music]
The Cruiskeen Lán
_With expression_.
[Music]
The Beautiful City of Sligo
_Quickly_.
[Music]
The Deserter's Meditation
_Slow_.
[Music]
Oft in the Stilly Night
_Slow_.
[Music]
Johnny, I hardly knew you
_Spirited_
[Music]
By Memory Inspired
[Music]
Eileen Aroon
[Music]
Air: "The Shan Van Vocht"
[Music]
Air: "I saw from the beach"
[Music]
Air: "Silent, O Moyle"
[Music]
An Spailin Fánach
_Moderately_
[Music]
Air: "The Last Rose of Summer"
[Music]
End of Project Gutenberg's Three Wonder Plays, by Lady I. A. Gregory