ACT I.—Room in a Church Tower.
ACT II.—[a] Forest— Rich Man's Banquet Hall.
ACT III.-Public Square and Town Hall.
ACT IV.—[a] Caliph's Palace— Seashore.
ACT V.—Country Church [Interior].
TIME: Middle Ages.
ACT ONE
SCENE: A Room in the Church Tower.
Window shutters at back wide open, starlit sky is seen through windows. Background: Snow covered house-roofs; gable windows in the distance brilliantly illuminated. In room an old chair, a fire-pan and a picture of the Virgin, with a lighted candle before it. Room is divided by posts—two in centre thick enough to conceal an adult.
Chant, in unison, from the church below:
A Solis ortus cardine
Et usque terrae limitem
Christum canamus principem
Natum Maria Virgini.
[Old Man comes up tower steps and enters carrying a rat-trap, a barley-sheaf and a dish of porridge, which he sets down on the floor.]
OLD MAN. Now the elf shall have his Christmas porridge. And this year he has earned it honestly—twice he awakened me when I fell asleep and forgot the tower shutters; once he rang the bell when fire broke loose. Merry Christmas, Elf! and many of them. [Takes up rat-trap and sets it.] Here's your Christmas mess, Satan's rats!
A VOICE. Curse not Christmas!
OLD MAN. I believe there are spirits about to-night—Ugh! it's the cold increasing; then the beams always creak, like an old ship. Here's your Christmas supper. Now perhaps you'll quit gnawing the bell-rope and eating up the tallow, you accursed pest!