Three Wonder Plays

Queen: The King's own guard will go out with
you.

Taig: I wouldn't ask one of them! What
would you think of me wanting help! A Dragon!
Little I'd think of him. I'll knock the life out of
him. I'll give him cruelty!

Queen: You have great courage indeed!

Taig: I'll cut him crossways and lengthways
the same as a yard of frieze! I'll make garters of
his body! I'll smooth him with a smoothing iron!
Not a fear of me! I never lost a bet yet that I
wasn't able to pay it!

Gateman: (As he rushes in, Taig slips away.)
The Dragon! The Dragon! I seen it coming and
its mouth open and a fiery flame from it! And
nine miles of the sea is dry with all it drank of it!
The whole country is gathering the same as of a
fair day for to see him devour the Princess.

(Princess trembles and sinks into a chair.
King, Queen and Dall Glic look from
window. They turn to her as they
speak.)

Queen: There is a terrible splashing in the sea!
It is like as if the Dragon's tail had beaten it into
suds of soap!

Dall Glic: He is near as big as a whale!

King: He is, and bigger!

Queen: I see him! I see him! He would seem
to have seven heads!

Dall Glic: I see but one.

Queen: You would see more if you had your
two eyes! He has six heads at the least!

King: He has but one. He is twisting and
turning it around.

Dall Glic: He is coming up towards the flaggy
shore!

King: I hear him! He is snoring like a flock
of pigs!

Queen: He is rearing his head in the air! He
has teeth as long as a tongs!

Doll Glic: No, but his tail he is rearing up!
It would take a ladder forty feet long to get to
the tip of it!

Queen: There is the King of Sorcha going out
the gate for to make an end of him.

Dall Glic: So he is, too. That is great bravery.

King: He is going to one side. He is come
to a stop.

Dall Glic: It seems to me he is ready to fall in
his standing. He is gone into a little thicket of
furze. He is not coming out, but is lying crouched
up in it the same as a hare in a tuft. I can see his
shoulders narrowed up.

Queen: He maybe got a weakness.

King: He did, maybe, of courage. Shaking
and shivering, he is like a hen in thunder. In my
opinion, he is hiding from the fight.

Queen: There is the Prince of the Marshes
going out now, and his coach after him! And
his two aunts sitting in it and screeching to him
not to run into danger!

King: He will not do much. He has not pith
or power to handle arms. That sort brings a bad
name on kings.

Dall Glic: He is gone away from the coach.
He is facing to the flaggy shore!

Queen: Oh, the Dragon has put up his head
and is spitting at him!

King: He has cast a spear into its jaw! Good man!

(Princess goes over to window.)

Dall Glic: He is casting another! His hand
shook ...it did not go straight. He is gone
on again! He has cast another spear! It should
hit the beast ...it let a roar!

Princess: Good little Prince! What way is
the battle now?

Dall Glic: It will kill him with its fiery breath!
He is running now ...he is stumbling ...the
Dragon is after him! He is up again! The two
Aunts have pushed him into the coach and have
closed the iron door.

King: It will fail the beast to swallow him coach
and all. It is gone back to refresh itself in the sea.
You can hear it puffing and plunging!

Queen: There is nothing to stop it now. (To
Princess.) If you have e'er a prayer, now is the
time to say it.

Dall Glic: Stop a minute ...there is another
champion going out.

King: A man wearing a saffron suit ...who
is he at all? He has the look of one used to giving
orders.

Princess: (Looking out.) Oh! he is but going
to his death. It would be better for me to throw
myself into the tide and make an end of it.

(Is rushing to door.)

King: (Holding her.) He is drawing his sword.
Himself and the Dragon are thrusting at one
another on the flags!

Princess: Oh, close the curtains! Shut out the
sound of the battle.

(Dall Glic closes curtains.)

King: Strike up now a tune of music that will
deafen the sound!

(Orchestra plays. Princess is kneeling by
King. Music changes from discord to
victory. Two Aunts and Gateman rush
in. Noise of cheering heard without as
the Gateman silences music.)

Gateman: Great news and wonderful news and
a great story!

First Aunt: The fight is ended!

Second Aunt: The Dragon is brought to his
last goal!

Gateman: That young fighting man that has
him flogged! Made at him like a wave breaking
on the strand! They crashed at one another like
two days of judgment! Like the battle of the
cold with the heat!

First Aunt: You'd say he was going through
dragons all his life!

Second Aunt: It can hardly put a stir out of
itself!

Gateman: That champion has it baffled and
mastered! It is after being chased over seven
acres of ground!

First Aunt: Drove it to its knees on the flaggy
shore and made an end of it!

King: God bless that man to-day and to-morrow!

Second Aunt: He has put it in a way it will eat
no more kings' daughters!

Princess: And the stranger that mastered it—
is he safe?

First Aunt: What signifies if he is or is not, so
long as we have our own young prince to bring
home!

Gatekeeper: He is not safe. No sooner had he
the beast killed and conquered than he fell dead,
and the life went out of him.

Princess: Oh, that is not right! He to be dead
and I living after him!

King: He was surely noble and high-blooded.
There are some that will be sorry for his death.

Princess: And who should be more sorry than
I myself am sorry? Who should keen him unless
myself? There is a man that gave his life for me,
and he young and all his days before him and shut
his eyes on the white world for my sake!

Queen: Indeed he was a man you might have
been content to wed with, hard and all as you are
to please.

Princess: I never will wed with any man so
long as my life will last, that was bought for me
with a life was more worthy by far than my own!
He is gone out of my reach; let him wait for me
to give him my thanks on the other side. Bring
me now his sword and his shield till I will put
them before me and cry my eyes down with grief!

Gateman: Here is his cap for you, anyway, and
his cleaver and his bunch of skivers. For the
champion you are crying was no other than that
lad of a cook!

Queen: That is not true! It is not possible!

Gateman: Sure I seen him myself going out the
gate a while ago. He put off his cook's apparel
and threw it along with these behind the turfstack. I
gathered them up presently and I coming in the door.

King: The world is gone beyond me entirely!
But what I was saying all through, there was
something beyond the common in that boy!

Queen: (To Princess, who is clinging to chair.)
Let you be comforted now, knowing he cannot
come back to lay claim to you in marriage, as it
is likely he would, and he living.

Princess: It is he saved me after my unkindness!...
Oh, I am ashamed ...ashamed!

Queen: It is a queer thing a king's daughter
to be crying after a man used to twisting the spit
in place of weapons, and over skivers in the place
of a sword!

Princess: (Gropes and totters.) What has happened?
There is something gone astray! I have
no respect for myself.... I cannot live! I am
ashamed. Where is Nurse? Muime! Come to
me, Muime!...My grief! The man that died
for me, whether he is of the noble or the simple
of the world, it is to him I have given the love of
my soul!

(Dall Glic supports her and lays her on
window seat.)

Nurse: (Rushing in.) What is it, honey?
What at all are they after doing to you?

Queen: Throw over her a skillet of water. She
is gone into a faint.

Dall Glic: (Who is bending over her.) She is
in no faint. She is gone out.

Nurse: Oh, my child and my darling! What
call had I to leave you among them at all?

King: Raise her up. It is impossible she can
be gone.

Dall Glic: Gone out and spent, as sudden as
a candle in a blast of wind.

King: Who would think grief would do away
with her so sudden, there to be seven of the like
of him dead?

Nurse: (Rises.) What did you do to her at all,
at all? Or was it through the fright and terror
of the beast?

Queen: She died of the heartbreak, being told
that the strange champion that had put down the
Dragon was killed dead.

Nurse: Killed, is it? Who now put that lie
out of his mouth? (Shouts in her ear.) What
would ail him to be dead? It is myself can tell
you the true story. No man in Ireland ever was
half as good as him! It was himself mastered the
beast and dragged the heart out of him and forced
down a squirrel's heart in its place, and slapped a
bridle on him. And he himself did but stagger
and go to his knees in the heat and drunkenness
of the battle, and rose up after as good as ever he
was! It is out putting ointments on him that I
was up to this, and healing up his cuts and wounds!
Oh, what ails you, honey, that you will not waken?

Queen: She thought it to be a champion and a
high up man that had died for her sake. It is
what broke her down in the latter end, hearing
him to be no big man at all, but a clown!

Nurse: Oh, my darling! And I not here to
tell you! You are a motherless child, and the
curse of your mother will be on me! It was no
clown fought for you, but a king, having generations
of kings behind him, the young King of Sorcha,
Manus, son of Solas son of Lugh.

King: I would believe that now sooner than
many a thing I would hear.

Nurse: (Keening.) Oh, my child, and my
share! I thought it was you would be closing my
eyes, and now I am closing your own! You to
be brought away in your young youth! Your hand
that was whiter than the snow of one night, and
the colour of the foxglove on your cheek.

(A great shouting outside and burst of music.
A march played. Manus comes in, followed
by Fintan and Prince of the Marshes.
Shouts and music continue. He leads the
Dragon by a bridle. The others are in
front of Princess, huddled from Dragon.
Queen gets up on a chair.)

Manus: Where is the Princess Nu? I have
brought this beast to bow itself at her feet.

(All are silent. Manus flings bridle to
Fintan's hand. Dragon backs out. All
go aside from Princess.)

Nurse: She is here dead before you.

Manus: That cannot be! She was well and
living half an hour ago.

Nurse: (Rises.) Oh, if she could but waken
and hear your voice! She died with the fret of
losing you, that is heaven's truth! It is tormented
she was with these giving out you were done away
with, and mocking at your weapons that they laid
down to be the cleaver and the spit, till the heart
broke in her like a nut.

Manus: (Kneeling beside her.) Then it is myself
have brought the death darkness upon you at the
very time I thought to have saved you!

Nurse: There is no blame upon you, but some
that had too much talk!

(Goes on keening.)

Manus: What call had I to come humbugging
and letting on as I did, teasing and tormenting
her, and not coming as a King should that is come
to ask for a Queen! Oh, come back for one minute
only till I will ask your pardon!

Dall Glic: She cannot come to you or answer
you at all for ever.

Manus: Then I myself will go follow you and
will ask for your forgiveness wherever you are gone,
on the Plain of Wonder or in the Many-Coloured
Land! That is all I can do ...to go after you
and tell you it was no want of respect that brought
me in that dress, but hurry and folly and taking
my own way. For it is what I have to say to you,
that I gave you my heart's love, what I never gave
to any other, since first I saw you before me in
my sleep! Here, now, is a short road to reach you!

(Takes sword.)

Prince of Marshes: (Catching his hand.) Go
easy now, go easy.

Manus: Take off your hand! I say I will die
with her!

Prince of Marshes: That will not raise her up
again. But I, now, if I have no skill in killing
beasts or men, have maybe the means of bringing
her back to life.

Nurse: Oh, my blessing on you! What is it
you have at all?

Prince of Marshes: (Taking bag from his Aunt.)
These three leaves from the Tree of Power that
grows by the Well of Healing. Here they are
now for you, tied with a thread of the wool of
the sheep of the Land of Promise. There is power
in them to bring one person only back to life.

First Aunt: Give them back to me! You
have your own life to think of as well as any other
one!

Second Aunt: Do not spend and squander that
cure on any person but yourself!

Prince of Marshes: (Giving the leaves.) And if
I have given her my love that it is likely I will
give to no other woman for ever, indeed and
indeed, I would not ask her or wish her to wed
with a very frightened man, and that is what I
was a while ago. But you yourself have earned her,
being brave.

Manus: (Taking leaves.) I never will forget it
to you. You will be a brave man yet.

Prince of Marshes: Give me in place of it your
sword; for I am going my lone through the world
for a twelvemonth and a day, till I will learn to
fight with my own hand.

(Manus gives him sword. He throws off cloak
and outer coat and fastens it on.)

Nurse: Stand back, now. Let the whole of ye
stand back. (She lays a leaf on the Princess's mouth
and one on each of her hands.) I call on you by
the power of the Seven Belts of the Heavens, of
the Twelve Winds of the World, of the Three
Waters of the Sea!

(Princess stirs slightly.)

King: That is a wonder of wonders! She is stirring!

Manus: Oh, my share of the world! Are you
come back to me?

Princess: It was a hard fight he wrestled with.
...I thought I heard his voice.... Is he come
from danger?

Nurse: He did. Here he is. He that saved
you and that killed the Dragon, and that let on
to be a serving boy, and he no less than one of
the world's kings!

Manus: Here I am, my dear, beside you, to be
your comrade and your company for ever.

Princess: You!...Yes, it is yourself. Forgive
me. I am sorry that I spoke unkindly to you
a while ago; I am ashamed that it failed me to
know you to be a king.

(She stands up, helped by Nurse.)

Manus: It was my own fault and my folly.
What way could you know it? There is nothing
to forgive.

Princess: But ...if I did not recognise you
as a king ...anyway ...the time you dropped
the eggs ...I was nearly certain that you were
no cook!

(They embrace.)

Queen: There now I have everything brought
about very well in the finish!

(A scream at door. Taig rushes in, followed
by Sibby, in country dress. He kneels at
the Queen's feet, holding on to her skirt.)

Sibby: Bad luck and bad cess to you! Torment
and vexation on you! (Seizes him by back of neck
and shakes him.) You dirty little scum and leavings!
You puny shrimp you! You miserable ninth part
of a man!

Queen: Is it King or the Dragon Killer he is
letting on to be yet, or do you know what he is
at all?

Sibby: It's myself knows that, and does know
it! He being Taig the tailor, my own son and
my misfortune, that stole away from me a while
ago, bringing with him the grand clothes of that
young champion (points to Manus) and his gold!
To borrow a team of horses from the plough he
did, and to bring away the magistrate's coach! But
I followed him! I came tracking him on the road!
Put off now those shoes that are too narrow for
you, you red thief, you! For, believe me, you'll
go facing home on shank's mare!

Taig: (Whimpering.) It's a very unkind thing
you to go screeching that out before the King,
that will maybe strike my head off!

Sibby: Did ever you know of anyone making a
quarrel in a whisper? To wed with the King's
daughter, you would? To go vanquish the water-worm,
you would? I'll engage you ran before you
went anear him!

Taig: If I didn't I'd be tore with his claws
and scorched with his fiery breath. It is likely
I'd be going home dead!

Sibby: Strip off now that cloak and that body-coat
and come along with me, or I'll make split
marrow of you! What call have you to a suit
that is worth more than the whole of the County
Mayo? You're tricky and too much tricks in you,
and you were born for tricks! It would be right
you to be turned into the shape of a limping
foxy cat!

Taig: (Weeping as he takes off clothes.) Sure
I thought it no harm to try to go better
myself.

Prince of Marshes: (Giving his cloak and coat.)
Here, I bestow these to you. If you were a while
ago a tailor among kings, from this out you will
be a king among tailors.

Sibby: (Curtseying.) Well, then, my thousand
blessings on you! He'll be as proud as the world
of that. Now, Taig, you'll be as dressed up as the

best of them! Come on now to Oughtmana, as
it is long till you'll quit it.

(They go towards door.)

Dragon: (Putting his head in at window.) Manus,
King of Sorcha, I am starved with the want of food.
Give me a bit to eat.

Fintan: He is not put down! He will devour
the whole of us! I'd sooner face a bullet and
ten guns!

Dragon: It is not mannerly to eat without
being invited. Is it any harm to ask where will
I find a meal will suit me?

Princess: Oh, does he ask to make a meal of
me, after all?

Dragon: I am hungry and dancing with the
hunger! It was you, Manus, stopped me from the
one meal. Let you set before me another.

King: There is reason in that. Drive up now
for him a bullock from the meadow.

Dragon: Manus, it is not bullocks I am craving,
since the time you changed the heart within me
for the heart of a little squirrel of the wood.

Manus: (Taking a cocoa-nut from table.) Here
is a nut from the island of Lanka, that is called
Adam's Paradise. Milk there is in it, and a kernel
as white as snow.

(He throws it out. Dragon is heard crunching.)

Dragon: (Putting head in again.) More! Give
me more of them! Give them out to me by the
dozen and by the score!

Manus: You must go seek them in the east of
the world, where you can gather them in bushels
on the strand.

Dragon: So I will go there! I'll make no delay!
I give you my word, I'd sooner one of them than
to be cracking the skulls of kings' daughters, and
the blood running down my jaws. Blood! Ugh!
It would disgust me! I'm in dread it would cause
vomiting. That and to have the plaits of hair
tickling and tormenting my gullet!

Princess: (Claps hands.) That is good hearing,
and a great change of heart.

Dragon: But if it's a tame dragon I am from this
out, I'm thinking it's best for me to make away
before you know it, or it's likely you'll be yoking
me to harrow the clods, or to be dragging the
water-car from the spring well. So good-bye the
whole of ye, and get to your supper. Much good
may it do you! I give you my word there is
nothing in the universe I despise, only the flesh-eaters
of Adam's race!

CURTAIN.