Yeats's play, The Pot of Broth, (which he wrote was composed with the help of Lady Gregory) is a retelling of the old European folk tale often known as "stone soup." There are also Chinese and North American versions of the story, suggesting that there is something genuinely universal about the idea. The cunning stranger who practices upon the credulity of a community is a common source of humor, though in this version, it is a community of one.

Sibby, however, is able to stand for a plethora of vices in one person. She is greedy, heartless, snobbish, ignorant, and vain. The Tramp plays upon all these vices to comic effect. While making the soup, he regales her with stories of how the most famous love songs in Ireland were written in her honor to distract her from the fact that he is stealing the ingredients to make the broth.

The play ends with Sibby clutching the stone she thinks is magic and ready to serve the next pot of broth it produces to the priest. She has already shown her meanness in this matter as she exclaimed:

Why couldn’t the Kernans have given the priest his dinner they way they always do? What did it matter their mother’s brother to have died? It is an excuse they had made up to put the expense of the dinner on me.

We are left to imagine the result of Sibby serving the stone broth. The humor in the play comes from her vices, the ease with which the Tramp deceives her and his wit in doing so, and the anticipation of her comeuppance.