BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The plays here collected were originally published separately at various dates during the past eighteen years, and are now brought together for the first time. The details of the previous issues, now for the most part out of print, are appended.

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NOTE

[1]

[2]

TO T. STURGE MOORE

February 29th, 1916.

[4]

[5]

KING LEAR'S WIFE

Toward the front a bed stands with its head against the right wall; it has thin leather curtains hung by thongs and drawn back. Farther forward a rich robe and a crown hang on a peg in the same wall. There is a second door beyond the bed, and between this and the bed's head stands a small table with a bronze lamp and a bronze cup on it. Queen Hygd, an emaciated woman, is asleep in the bed; her plenteous black hair, veined with silver, spreads over the pillow. Her waiting-woman, Merryn, middle-aged and hard-featured, sits watching her in a chair on the farther side of the bed. The light of early morning fills the room.

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THE CRIER BY NIGHT

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THE CRIER BY NIGHT

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[82]

TO EDWARD THOMAS

30 June 1908.

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THE RIDING TO LITHEND

The side wall is low and wainscotted with carved panelling on which hang weapons, shields, and coats of mail. In one place a panel slid aside shews a shut bed.

In front of the panelling are two long benches with a carved high-seat between them. Across the end of the hall are similar panellings and the seats, with corresponding tables, of the women's daïs; behind these and in the gable wall is a high narrow door with a rounded top.

A timber roof slopes down to the side wall and is upheld by cross-beams and two rows of tall pillars which make a rather narrow nave of the centre of the hall. One of these rows runs parallel to the side wall, the pair of pillars before the high-seat being carved and ended with images; of the other row only two pillars are visible at the extreme right.

Within this nave is the space for the hearths; but the only hearth visible is the one near the women's daïs. In the roof above it there is a louvre: the fire glows and no smoke rises. The hall is lit everywhere by the firelight.

[86]

The rafters over the women's daïs carry a floor at the level of the side walls, forming an open loft which is reached by a wide ladder fixed against the wall: a bed is seen in this loft. Low in the roof at intervals are shuttered casements, one being above the loft: all the shutters are closed.

Near the fire a large shaggy hound is sleeping; and Ormild, in the undyed woollen dress of a thrall, is combing wool.

Oddny stands spinning at the far side; near her Astrid and Steinvor sit stitching a robe which hangs between them.

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MIDSUMMER EVE

[132]

Summer 1921—Spring 1922.

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MIDSUMMER EVE

A late June twilight is deepening; a faint moist heat-haze hides nothing, only distinguishing the planes of the distant trees with a cloudy delicacy. There is no wind, nor any movement; one blackbird sings somewhere for a little while, then it ceases and there is no sound in the fields.

The whole prospect is of a solitary, fruitfully overgrown valley shut in from everywhere.

Within the barn, to the left, is a high hay-mow with a ladder leaning against it; much hay has been tumbled at its foot in forking from the carts. To the right is a space of floor where the corn is to be heaped in the ending of summer:[138] as yet, however, it is empty, save for a wooden plough, a homely rough wooden roller, wooden harrows, an uptilted, pleasantly shaped cart whence the hay-shelvings have not yet been removed. In the far corner of the bare walls of undressed stone at this side is an open door leading into a mistal. Presently a cow is heard moaning sickly beyond this door.

The barn is still more dim than the land, so that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that is known of the far-off roof. Nearing footfalls are heard in the road, and a woman's singing grows clearer.

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