---
title: “Three magic words may stop the flood, three magic drops may heal th… — The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North · tree and pragmatics
description: “Three magic words may stop the flood, three magic drops may heal the wound,” answered the Graybeard. Who acts: Three magic words, three magic drops, Graybeard. A sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son, with its dependency tree and the pra
---

<!-- md -->
[Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/4/42/)

<!-- crumbs -->
[home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old No…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/) / [The Graybeard and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/4/) / 42

# The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North, The Graybeard and His Son, sentence 42

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
“Three magic words may stop the flood, three magic drops may heal the wound,” answered the Graybeard.

<!-- .vintro -->
**Who acts:** Three magic words, three magic drops, Graybeard · **What happens:** stop, heal, answer · **To what, where:** flood, wound · **Speech:** someone speaks here

<!-- .vabout -->
This is a sentence of «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, The Graybeard and His Son. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Three magic words, three magic drops, Graybeard), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

<!-- .note-en -->
**Mova's own parse.** This tree may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg66819:4:42
# text = “Three magic words may stop the flood, three magic drops may heal the wound,” answered the Graybeard.
1	“	"	PUNCT	``	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	Three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	4	nummod	_	_
3	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	4	amod	_	_
4	words	word	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	6	nsubj	_	_
5	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
6	stop	stop	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	19	ccomp	_	_
7	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	8	det	_	_
8	flood	flood	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	6	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
10	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	12	nummod	_	_
11	magic	magic	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	12	amod	_	_
12	drops	drop	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	14	nsubj	_	_
13	may	may	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	14	aux	_	_
14	heal	heal	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	conj	_	_
15	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	16	det	_	_
16	wound	wound	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	14	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	6	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
18	”	"	PUNCT	''	_	6	punct	_	_
19	answered	answer	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
20	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	21	det	_	_
21	Graybeard	Graybeard	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	19	obj	_	SpaceAfter=No
22	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	19	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **stop** *in a quote* | may | Three magic words | the flood |  |  |  |  | vn stop-55.4-1-1 «NP V NP.eventuality»: agent=Subeventuality flood=Eventuality |
| 2 | **heal** *in a quote* | may | three magic drops | the wound |  |  |  |  | vn other\_cos-45.4 «NP V NP.patient»: agent=Agent wound=Patient |
| 3 | **answer** *speech: assert* | past | the Graybeard |  |  |  |  |  | tree rules |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

<!-- div src -->

**Text:** «The Sampo: A Wonder Tale of the Old North» by James Baldwin, Project Gutenberg book 66819 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

<!-- /div -->

<!-- pn -->
- ← previous: [sentence 41](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/4/41/)
- next →: [sentence 43](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/4/43/)
- ↑ back to [The Graybeard and His Son](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg66819/4/)