The Welsh Interludes were poetic compositions, calling forth the abilities of the village composers. A great many of these still exist, not perhaps excellent in dramatic situations, but some of them of no mean poetic value. The Interlude was the direct offspring of the old Morality, and it was allegorical rather than directly dramatic. We have in English, among our peasantry, still a few of these, such as the “Dialogue between the Serving-man and the Gardener,” and a score of altercations in verse, very generally sung, in Cornwall, between a youth and a damsel, who begin by quarrelling, or with the maiden flouting the young man, and end in reconciliation and a trot off hand-in-hand to be married. There is another, once popular in Cornwall, in which the ghost of a maiden appears to her lover and sets him hard riddles, which he answers. Unless he could answer them she would have drawn him to the grave. Another, again, is that of “Richard Malvine,” where the plot consists in an intrigue carried on between a parson and the miller’s wife. The wife pretends to be ill, and sends for her husband. “O Richard Malvine, O Richard Malvine! Good husband, I’m like to die, And medicine alone can me restore As here on my bed I lie. I would drink of the Well of Absalom, Its water I fain would try, And oh! for a bottle of ale!” The husband departs in quest of the Well of Absalom, and the wife complacently says:-- “Pray God send him a hard journey, And never to come home.” No sooner is Richard Malvine gone than the wife sends for the parson, and to him she says:-- “Pray feast with me; I have good ale, bread fresh and bread stale, And withal a venison pasty. And merry we’ll drink and eat and dance, Right merry I trow we’ll be.” Now Richard Malvine had a man who was trusty. And so soon as the miller went forth, the man pursued him, caught him up, and said:-- “O master, good Richard Malvine, Thou art not gone far from here. The priest and thy wife are right merrie, Are having good sport and cheer. Get into the sack, that I bear on my back, And what they shall say, thou’lt hear. “O Richard Malvine, O Richard Malvine! Thy wife is false to thee. I’ll stand the sack in the chimney-back, Where thou canst hear and see. And thou shalt find, when thou hast a mind To call, I am near to thee.” The parson arrives, and the table is spread--all this was acted in farm-houses. The wife says:-- “My husband, Richard Malvine, is forth, A journey afar doth roam, A bottle to fetch of the water fresh Of the Well of Absalom.” Then the parson sits down and eats with the wife, and there is much fun, somewhat broad--when out of the sack in the chimney-back jumps Richard Malvine, and he shouts:--