It’s I can rhyme you out the joy
  That’s ready for a lively boy. 
  Cuchulain flung a golden ball
  And followed it where it would fall,
  And when they counted him a child
  He took the flying swans alive. 
  And Finn was given hares to mind
  Till he outran them and the wind;
  And he could swim and overtake
  The wild duck swimming on the lake. 
  Osgar’s young music was to thwack
  The enemy and drive him back....

Guardian:  That’s enough now.  I have no fancy for that class of song.  What other amusements are there?

Servant:  There are the Wrenboys are come here at the end of their twelve days’ funning.

Jester:  That’s it!  The Wrenboys; a rambling troop; rambling the world like myself.  I will make place for them.  The old must give way to the young.

(He goes and sits down in a corner, munching a crust and dozing.)

Servant:  Come in here let ye, and show what ye can do!

(Wrenboys come in playing a fife.  They are wearing little masks and are dressed in ragged tunics; they carry drum and, fife, and stand in a line.)

All Five Wrenboys:  (Together.)

The wren, the wren, the King of all birds, On Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze.  Although he’s small his family’s great, Rise up kind gentry and give us a treat! (Rub-a-tub-tub-tub, on the drum.)

  Down with the kettle and up with the pan
  And give us money to bury the wren!
  (Rub-a-tub.)

We followed him twenty miles since morn, The Wrenboys are all tattered and torn.  From Kyle-na-Gno we started late And here we are at this grand gate! (Rub-a-tub.)

He dipped his wing in a barrel of beer—­ We wish you all a Happy New Year!  Give us now money to buy him a bier And if you don’t, we’ll bury him here! (Rub-a-tub, and fife.)

(Princes laugh and clap hands.)

1st Prince:  That is very good.

2nd Prince:  We must give them some money to bury the wren!

Guardian:  Come on then and I will give you some.  They will be glad of it.  Play now the harp as you go.

(Princes go off playing, “Home, Sweet Home.” The Wrenboys sit down.)

1st Wrenboy:  It is likely we’ll get good treatment.

Jester:  (Coming forward.) Ye should be tired.

2nd Wrenboy:  We should be, but that we have our feet well soled,—­with the dust of the road!

3rd Wrenboy:  If walking could tire us we might be tired.  But we’re as well pleased to be moving, where we have no house or home that you’ll call a house or a home.

Jester:  That’s not so with those young princes.  Wouldn’t you be well pleased if ye could change places with them? (He goes back to his corner.)