Heard recently at the Green Leaves Inn in Daggersprings
Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:22 pm
As sung by Filip Silvers:
A Sun Elf went walking one day.
A minstrel, he met on the way.
Who sat on a stone
And sang all alone
Not one note awry or astray.
The Elf listened to the Bard sing,
And when the last coda did ring,
He said "that was tripe.
Ill-tuned, not unlike
A cat, in its heat, suffering."
The Bard offered apologies:
"See, riddles are my expertise.
Yet I’m perturbed
The last one I heard
Was too tough a question for me.”
The Sun Elf said "So I would bet
You lack the required intellect.
Tell me the riddle
I’ll have, ere its middle,
The answer you want, I suspect."
The Bard said "You bet, so you say.
So I bet I’ll nevermore bray,
If you bet you’ll screech
Like that cat for a week
Should you fail to answer today."
So the Bard said:
"Four of my number do gather,
Jealous that their brother matters
Much more than they,
So they separate,
But things pick up when they’re together."
The Sun Elf stood thinking, then said:
"You won’t sing again til you’re dead
It’s easy, my man
The answer’s 'The hand'
The brothers are fingers instead."
The Bard said "Quite cleverly played.
Yet you failed to answer: 'today'.
And so, like a cat,
You’ll holler and blat,
And this bard will e’er sing and play."
The moral of this may be hard
To those who have high self-regard:
Critics are legion,
Like cats they keep breedin'
But only a few can be Bards.
A Sun Elf went walking one day.
A minstrel, he met on the way.
Who sat on a stone
And sang all alone
Not one note awry or astray.
The Elf listened to the Bard sing,
And when the last coda did ring,
He said "that was tripe.
Ill-tuned, not unlike
A cat, in its heat, suffering."
The Bard offered apologies:
"See, riddles are my expertise.
Yet I’m perturbed
The last one I heard
Was too tough a question for me.”
The Sun Elf said "So I would bet
You lack the required intellect.
Tell me the riddle
I’ll have, ere its middle,
The answer you want, I suspect."
The Bard said "You bet, so you say.
So I bet I’ll nevermore bray,
If you bet you’ll screech
Like that cat for a week
Should you fail to answer today."
So the Bard said:
"Four of my number do gather,
Jealous that their brother matters
Much more than they,
So they separate,
But things pick up when they’re together."
The Sun Elf stood thinking, then said:
"You won’t sing again til you’re dead
It’s easy, my man
The answer’s 'The hand'
The brothers are fingers instead."
The Bard said "Quite cleverly played.
Yet you failed to answer: 'today'.
And so, like a cat,
You’ll holler and blat,
And this bard will e’er sing and play."
The moral of this may be hard
To those who have high self-regard:
Critics are legion,
Like cats they keep breedin'
But only a few can be Bards.