Translated by David Marcus from the 200 year old Irish poem
by Brian Merriman and put to music by Sean Tyrrell.
A summary of the poem will not do it justice.
The
poet on his morning’s
stroll in 1780 admires the views, falls asleep and dreams.
A
fierce huge woman, the bailiff of the fairy host, takes him
to a court of women who are discussing Ireland’s falling population
and the scarcity of marriage partners. A young woman addresses
the court, attacking men who delay until they are too old to
satisfy a young woman. A miserable old man defends men but the
young woman derides his performance as husband. Among her proposals
is that priests should marry.
Aoibheall, the fairy queen and
the court’s justice, pronounces a verdict against the men.
The bailiff calls on various women by name to chastise Merriman
and to show him no mercy.
The poet in terror wakes up. As well
as its literary worth, The Midnight Court is full
of information about spells, folklore and 18th century rural
life as well as matters revolving around marriage, sex, population,
women’s rights, births outside marriage, clerical celibacy— all
perennially suitable topics for the stage
