Dall Glic: He prophesied in a prophecy, and
it is written in clean letters in the King's yew-tree
box.
King: It is best to keep it out of sight. It
being to be, it will be; and, if not, where's the
use troubling our mind?
Queen: Sound it out to me.
Dall Glic: (Looking from window and drawing
curtain.) There is no story in the world is worse
to me or more pitiful; I wouldn't wish any person
to hear.
Nurse: Oh, take care it would come to the
ears of my darling Nu!
Dall Glic: It is said by himself and the heavens
that in a year from this day the King's daughter will
be brought away and devoured by a scaly Green
Dragon that will come from the North of the
World.
Queen: A Dragon! I thought you were talking
of some danger. I wouldn't give in to dragons.
I never saw one. I'm not in dread of beasts unless
it might be a mouse in the night-time!
King: Put it out of mind. It is likely anyway
that the world will soon be ended the way
it is.
Queen: I will send and search out this astrologer
and will question him.
Dall Glic: You have not far to search. He
is outside at the kitchen door at this minute, and
as if questioning after something, and it a half-score
and seven years since I knew him to come
out of his cave.