Jessica, Joyce and Joan. Forgotten, too, the name of Gillian, the
lovely captive. And the Wandering Singer is to them but the
Wandering Singer, not Martin Pippin the Minstrel. 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. But this is a fallacy.
Martin Pippin never wheedled anything out of anybody for his own
purposes--in fact, he had none of his own. On this adventure he was
about the business of young Robin Rue. There are further
discrepancies; for the Emperor's Daughter was not an emperor's
daughter, but a farmer's; nor was the Sea the sea, but a duckpond;
nor---

But let us begin with the children's version, as they sing and dance
it on summer days and evenings in Adversane.

THE SINGING-GAME OF "THE SPRING-GREEN LADY"

(The Emperor's Daughter sits weeping in her Tower. Around her, with
their backs to her, stand six maids in a ring, with joined hands.
They are in green dresses. The Wandering Singer approaches them with
his lute.)

THE WANDERING SINGER
Lady, lady, my spring-green lady,
May I come into your orchard, lady?
For the leaf is now on the apple-bough
And the sun is high and the lawn is shady,
Lady, lady,