Martin Pippin never wheedled anything out of anybody for his own purposes–in fact, he had none of his own. Worse and worse, he is even presumed to be the captive's sweetheart, who wheedles the flower, the ring, and the prison-key out of the strict virgins for his own purposes, and flies with her at last in his shallop across the sea, to live with her happily ever after. And the Wandering Singer is to them but the Wandering Singer, not Martin Pippin the Minstrel. Forgotten, too, the name of Gillian, the lovely captive. Often there are more than six in the group, for the true number of the damsels who guarded their fellow in her prison is as forgotten as their names: Joscelyn, Jane, and Jennifer, Jessica, Joyce, and Joan. But there you will still find one child who takes the part of the Emperor's Daughter, and another who is the Wandering Singer, and the remaining group (there should be no more than six in it) becomes the Spring-Green Lady, the Rose-White Lady, the Apple-Gold Lady, of the three parts of the game. Of these things, and such as these, they ask no questions. It is to them as the daisies in the grass and the stars in the sky. IN Adversane in Sussex they still sing the song of The Spring-Green Lady any fine evening, in the streets or in the meadows, you may come upon a band of children playing the old game that is their heritage, though few of them know its origin, or even that it had one. MUSIC FOR THE SINGING GAME OF The Spring-Green Lady 300 THE SIXTH STORY: The Imprisoned Princess 266 THE FIFTH STORY: Proud Rosalind and the Hart-Royal 210 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 61-14061 Lithographed in the United States of America Renewal copyright 1949 by Eleanor Farjeon
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