The Three Megs

Night Stories

THE THREE MEGS

DARK MEG: 

She’s as contrary as the thick thread against the eye of a thin needle, and that’s the God’s honest truth of it.  No amount of probin’ will uncover what she knows. She has a sight of secrets, so she has.

FAIR MEG:

Everyone is entitled to her own secrets.  There’s no harm in that if there’s no harm in them.

GREY MEG:

A hidden wisdom is like the sealed bud of a wild orchid in Clare.  No knowing which way it will open or to whose face it will turn.  Depends on the wind or the sun or the kind mind.

DARK MEG:

What is she hashing on about now?   When did she lose her wits?

FAIR MEG:

 Oh, about a year ago, I’d say.  A terrible affliction altogether.  She got a ‘touching’, it seems.  Luckily it was of a light nature and didn’t impair her functions, just made her take leave of her senses.  She can still make a cup of tea, you know, boil spuds and cabbage, things not complicated.  I doubt if she could knit an Aran jumper though. 

DARK MEG:

Well, who in their right mind could?  It takes nifty needles, a mouthful of safety pins and sleight of hand for that. 

Hey, Grey Meg!  Could you knit us an Aran jumper then?

FAIR MEG:

Don’t be confusing her now.  You’ll addle her wits even more.

GREY MEG:

I saw basking seals there once, dappled on a lone shore, moaning their laments to anyone who was up and wandering, at the slither of dawn.

DARK MEG:

What the heck kind of answer is that?  Sure where in Ireland can yeh get barking seals?

FAIR MEG:

She was on the Aran Isles there for a minute, don’t you see?  There’ll be one word or a mere understanding that she’ll pick up on and run with and a memory will come or a bit of ‘portrey’ or some such.

DARK MEG:

And the seals bark there?  That must mean they’re related to dogs…  now, would you credit that?  So the flippers just grew into wee paws!

GREY MEG:

A pause in time is a moment lost or gained, not something to fight over or lament about.

DARK MEG:

Aye, Grey Meg, you poor soul, and you barking too.

FAIR MEG:

She does a lot of lamenting, but sure we’ve all got used to her.  She never gets left out.  People like to have her around because of the ‘touching’ from something greater than themselves.  There is a twisted wisdom in there, no doubt about it.

DARK MEG:

They say it is a hard task to get a lie past those with simple truth.  And it’s only been a year, you say?

FAIR MEG:

The ‘touching’ was late in coming, mind.  Usually by six years old, it’s apparent.  And as for barking, I wouldn’t know, but they do ‘bask’ in the sun, I know that, the seals, that is.

DARK MEG:

What spawned it then, the ‘touching’?  I’ve heard of people getting ‘the call’ and then becoming priests and nuns and whatnot, but this is a call gone wayward, if you ask me.  Was she in an accident or what?

GREY MEG:

An accident is a call of nature for retribution.   Everyone obeys a full-stop.

FAIR MEG:

Aye, Grey Meg, you’re right there, all right, no quicker way to slow us down.  You have the good habit of making us think. 

DARK MEG:

But if she can talk like that, why can’t she talk directly to us?  She’s in her own wee world, isn’t she?  You were trying to tell me what started it all.  I mind her before she was this sandwich short of a picnic, a jollier woman I never came across, I declare!  Life and soul of every gathering, and a wild good dancer too.  It gives me the jitters that someone can change just like that.

FAIR MEG:

Well, maybe that was her full-stop, who knows?  But rumour has it that it was a meeting that changed her.  She went through the hole in the stone and we don’t know what met her on the other side, but I’d say it was some sort of intelligent wee person not of our ilk, if you know what I mean.

DARK MEG:

Pardon me!  Speak for yourself!  I class myself as having the ilk of an intelligent person, not genius by any standard, but blessed with good sense and good wit. And God preserve me from ever venturing through the hole in thon stone.  Where is this stone when it’s at home?  It ought to be crushed.

FAIR MEG:

Don’t take umbrage now.  I meant a wee person in a different realm altogether.  Some call them faeries.  And I’ve heard tell of this stone, but never had a hankering to find it.  There’s a hole in the middle of it and the mothers used to pass the wee babbies through it to stop the faeries replacing them with changelings.  But it’s a chance they take.  Sometimes it’s too late already.

DARK MEG:

And the hole in the stone was big enough for Grey Meg?  And she was inclined to go through it?

GREY MEG:

Those with an inkling are inclined.

DARK MEG:

Lord save us!  She’s not daft, you know.  I couldn’t do anything I was not inclined to do.  Could you?

FAIR MEG:

I’m inclined to do everything.  Sure if it wasn’t for me and my inclinations, nothing would get done at all. 

DARK MEG:

What’s a changeling when it’s at home?  How would you know the difference between that and a wee babby?

FAIR MEG:

Oh, they’re not as agreeable looking for a start, sort of wizened.  Cantankerous too, I’ve heard say.  They become the bain of a mother’s life, so they do.  She’s bound to the changeling night and day, run off her feet, I’d say.

GREY MEG:

Bane, Bane, Wolfsbane to keep the wolf at bay, night and day, and Colt, Colt, Coltsfoot to bind the foot, night and day.  One to block and one to draw.  One to sever, one to gnaw.

DARK MEG:

To be so witless, she scares the wits out of me sometimes, with her funny wee words and them rhyming and whatnot.  I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t a witch.  Even ‘wit’ and ‘witch’ go together, isn’t that funny, eh?

FAIR MEG:

Aw now!  Aw, now!  Don’t say that!  No point in letting thoughts run away with us.  Runaway thoughts cause too much bother, and before you know it, we have a scandal.

GREY MEG:

Runaway thoughts cause loose tongues.

DARK MEG:

Aye, isn’t that so, Grey Meg?  Aw, Lord bless us, sure now she’s conversing with me, and I, her?  What is the world turning to, eh?

FAIR MEG:

I’ve noticed that, myself, that after a while she drifts into the conversation, and us none the wiser, and she steering it all.  She’s older than us all, I think.

GREY MEG:

Too many times around the sun.

DARK MEG:

Did you hear that, Fair Meg?  She’s telling us she has been too many times around the sun.  Do you think she’s telling us why we might think she was older?  I do believe she’s talking to us!  What a breakthrough!

Grey Meg, tell us, are you saying you have been too many times around the sun, eh?  My uncle used to say that about an old goat he had, you know.

GREY MEG:

Hell moves around the sun.  Put silk on a goat and it is still a goat.

FAIR MEG:

Do you think she’s saying we are all in Hell?  But you know when I think of it, she might be right, with all the ranting and raving and lamenting going on, and one murder after another, and the Divil himself in a silk coat too.

DARK MEG:

In a silk coat?  Would you credit that now?  It would take some tailoring to make a silk coat for the Divil, wouldn’t it now?  Sure, there isn’t a country in the world he doesn’t stand in, is there?  Does he have a silk hat too to cover the horns?  That would be some hat, wouldn’t it?

GREY MEG:

It takes a big hat to cover even a small ego.

DARK MEG:

Aye, indeed, you’re right there!  But I’d say there was no greater ego than that of the Divil himself, when he’s not at home, Grey Meg!

FAIR MEG:

Dark Meg, do you see what has happened?  You just answered Grey Meg, and she, you.  I tell you, before you know it, she’s right in there, and us in with her and the whole lot making sense too!  By the way, when the Divil is not at home with his big ego, where is he then?

DARK MEG:

I’d say, he’d be well ensconced in Riley’s pub, Fair Meg.  He’s not likely to be skulking around graveyards or the Mother’s Union, is he now?  A fella like him would want to party, I’d say.

FAIR MEG:

Aye, he wouldn’t be found in drab places, would he now?  And the Mother’s Union is all fairy cakes and idle gossip, not fancy enough for him, although Riley’s pub is hardly the place for a silk hat and coat, if the truth be known.  He’d stand out like a sore thumb there!

GREY MEG:

What stands behind us is history, what stands before us is a mystery and where we are now is a gift.

DARK MEG:

Lord save us, Grey Meg.  We were dished out some gift, weren’t we now, Divil or no Divil?  Look at the expanse of this earth and all it’s hashing of souls upon it, and the sky with a zillion stars winking in the night, hiding in the day, and a sea full of life hardly known to us at all, electric hammer-head fish, and whatnot.  Not even one lifetime of looking could show the jewels of that gift, eh?

FAIR MEG:

Aye, Dark Meg, and no scope big enough to see the length and breadth of it all.  No knowing what is crouching in faraway corners either.  I’d need to see the whole package to decide if it was a gift worth the keeping.

DARK MEG:

That’s the trouble!  A gift is a gift but does that give us the right to destroy it because we don’t like the look of it?  I’d say not, but then that’s me.  I save all and sundry or pass its use on somewhere else.  No accounting for what others might do, though.

GREY MEG:

The world is a gift to the child, and the child to the world.  We must look after the changelings.

DARK MEG:

You know, she has the gift of talking in circles too.  Did you see how she brought that all the way back to the hole in the stone again?  That’s wisdom for you.  We must look after the changelings, says she, and I believe she might be right.  A child is a child whether a changeling child or not, and what can we do but love it, eh?

FAIR MEG:

Ach, sure the world is full of changelings these days, and what are changelings for, other than for making changes?  Too many changes, if you ask me.  There’s no stillness anywhere, even in dreams.  In my estimation there are not enough stones with holes in them to go round for all the mothers to protect the wee babbies.  I wonder if wee stones grow into boulders. 

GREY MEG:

The changing stone turns to gold.   

DARK MEG:

And what’s that mean when she’s at home?  I thought stones didn’t change, and I thought gold was always there…  from space, they say.

FAIR MEG:

From space?   What?  It fell here?  No wonder they’re breaking their necks to get into space.  Gold-rushing in space!  That’s greed for you!  No shame.

DARK MEG:

I don’t think it fell, it was there from the beginning, though what beginning, I can’t imagine!   As Grey Meg says: ‘the past is history, the future a mystery and the gift is now’.  Change is the only certainty in my mind, and if that’s the case, we’re here for ever and we’re all changelings, so that’s the truth of it.

FAIR MEG:

Aye, I think you’re right, Dark Meg.  No sense in struggling against consequences; what will be will be.  The only kind thing would be to make a happiness out of it all.  Grey Meg is blessed with her funny wee wisdoms, her mind skittering about in the obvious for her, and she’s not a dull soul at all, she’s well read, bright and sharp as an eagle, just not at home all the time, and who can blame her for that?

DARK MEG:

Did you hear that, Grey Meg?  Fair Meg thinks you’re bright and sharp as the eagle, just not at home all the time, and of course you’re not, you’re with us, amongst the changelings, aren’t you, love?

GREY MEG:

The changelings make saints out of mothers.  Home is a palace of rest.

DARK MEG:

Then we’re all destined for goodness or at least a good rest.  Well, that’s a relief, although I do anything but rest in my home, when’s all said and done, all that cooking and cleaning and dusting till the cows come home.  Hardly a palace!  It’s nothing but a square box that traps the dust if you ask me!

FAIR MEG:
I think Grey Meg is referring to a bigger home where we go to rest before we begin again.  We might need to be a bit saintlier too.  I would think that changelings could go in any direction too, don’t you?  I mean they can be either little divils or angels, depending on the amount of goodness or badness they take upon themselves. 

DARK MEG:

My head is twisted with all this thinking, Fair Meg.  But you know I wouldn’t change Grey Meg one iota, for she burrows deep like a wee blind mole.  And the conversation is far livelier when she’s around, otherwise we might as well go to the Mother’s Union, eat fairy cakes, and indulge in idle gossip about each other.  I was thinking you know, that maybe if she went back through the hole in the stone, it might cure her, but it would be a loss for us all.

FAIR MEG:

Well, we can’t force her.  I doubt anyone would look upon us with favour if they saw us shoving Grey Meg through thon hole in that stone, especially if she had no inclination to go!  The other alternative would be for us to go through it too.

DARK MEG:

Is your head cut altogether?  You won’t see me dead anywhere near thon stone, never mind squeezing myself through it.  As I said before, it ought to be crushed.  And if you had an inclination to go through the hole in the stone, Fair Meg, I’d be talking to myself then, with the two of you at the helm.  Where is the sense in that, eh?

GREY MEG:

I agree.  Where is the sense in that?

FAIR MEG:

Good grief!  She’s agreeing with us!  Dark Meg, she actually agreed with us.

DARK MEG:

Well, I agree with her if she agrees with me, and you agree with her and me.  That’s settled then.  We’re all friends.

FAIR MEG:
We’re all friends surely, if we’re all in agreement. 

GREY MEG:

We’re all friends then, hole in the stone or no stone at all.

THE END            Dwina**    

Note: This piece was written as a ‘trialogue’, a talking heads piece for small stage. It is a dialogue between two people, but showing how a third person who is not in the same kind of mind-frame can steer a conversation by adding their own paraphasing as they understand it. The third person is accepted by the community and looked after rather than being shoved away from society because they see things differently. In Ireland, the ‘changeling’ concept was a real belief and often poets were thought to be ‘touched’ or imbued with some faery muse magic to bring words to life.