he staff struck carefully into the darkness before us to
see that the path beyond is not a morass, and the light
not a will o' the wisp." (But this may not refer to our
own Revolution, seeing that has been making a step now
and again towards what many judged to be a will o' the
wisp through over seven hundred years.)

As to the machinery of the play, the spell was first to
have been worked by a harp hung up by some wandering
magician, and that was to work its change according to
the wind, as it blew from north or south, east or west.
But that would have been troublesome in practice, and
the Bellows having once entered my mind, brought there
I think by some scribbling of the pencil that showed Conan
protecting himself with an umbrella, seemed to have every
necessary quality, economy, efficiency, convenience.

As to Aristotle, his name is a part of our folklore. The
old wife of one of our labourers told me one day, as a bee
buzzed through the open door: "Aristotle of the Books
was very wise but the bees got the better of him in the
end. He wanted to know how did they pack the comb,
and he wasted the best part of a fortnight watching them,
and he could not see them doing it. Then he made a
hive with a glass cover on it and put it over them, and
he thought to watch them. But when he went to put his
eye to the glass, they had it all covered with wax so that
it was as black as the pot, and he was as blind as before.
He said he was never rightly killed till then. The bees
had him beat that time surely." And Douglas Hyde
brought home one day a story from Kilmacduagh bog, in
which Aristotle took the place of Solomon, the Wise Man
in our tales as well as in those of the East. And he said
that as the story grew and the teller became more familiar,
the name of Aristotle was shortened to that of Harry.

As to the songs they are all sung to the old Irish airs I
give at the end.

A. GREGORY.

August 18, 1921.

THE JESTER

A PLAY IN THREE ACTS

FOR RICHARD

January, 1919

A.G.

PERSONS

_The Five Princes_.

_The Five Wrenboys_.

_The Guardian of the Princes and Governor of the Island_.

_The Servant_.

_The Two Dowager Messengers_.

_The Ogre_.

_The Jester_.

_Two Soldiers_.

_The Scene is laid in The Island of Hy Brasil, that
appears every seven years_.

_Time: Out of mind_.

ACT I

ACT I

_Scene: A winter garden, with pots of flowering
trees or fruit-trees. There are bo