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And [makes] milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv’d and did deliver to our age

This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth.

Page.

Why, yet there want not many that do fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s oak.

But what of this?

Mrs. Ford.

Marry, this is our device:

That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us,

[Disguis’d like [Herne], with huge horns on his head].

Page.

Well, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,

And in this shape when you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

Mrs. Page.

That likewise have we thought upon, and thus:

Nan Page (my daughter) and my little son,

And three or four more of their growth, we’ll dress

Like urchins, ouphes, and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen tapers on their heads,

And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,

As Falstaff, she, and I are newly met,

Let them from forth a sawpit rush at once