We were engaged once upon a time.

It was delightful once upon a time!

"Once upon a time" -- "Well, go on."

Once upon a time, the Foxes were angry with Sun.

Once upon a time this had been a dream of the future.

And I fancied she had good shoulders, once upon a time!

He must say: 'Once upon a time, a good many years ago--!

Once upon a time Christ Himself, Our Little Father, died.

So once upon a time he took thought and said, "Glory to Thee!

Once upon a time there was a man and his Wife and a Tertium Quid.

; once upon a time, one fine morning, one fine day, one day, once.

Are you aware that once upon a time she was engaged to be married to
me?

Not very far from a town where dwelt the king lived once upon a time a
farmer.

THE PINK There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no
children.

Once upon a time," said the Linnet, "there was an honest little fellow
named Hans.

Seals had come to those islands once upon a time, but men had killed
them all off.

Once upon a time, a good many years ago, I was a little boy, and I
lived on a farm.

[143] Once upon a time a traveller happened in the region where this
animal is found.

JOHNNY-CAKE Once upon a time there was an old man, and an old woman,
and a little boy.

___________ THE HISTORY OF A SQUASH _____ Once upon a time a farmer
planted a little seed.

But there was an artisan, once upon a time, who made a glass vial that
couldn't be broken.

-- I know nothing about him at all; only I had an ancestor of that
name, once upon a time.

KATE CRACKERNUTS Once upon a time there was a king and a queen, as in
many lands have been.

THE STORY OF THE PET CROW Once upon a time there came to a large
village a plague of crows.

Once upon a time it happened that a man journeying from Elam arrived
in Sodom toward evening.

Solomon once upon a time noticed a care-worn expression on the
countenance of the Angel of Death.

Once upon a time there was a Porter in Baghdad, who was a bachelor and
who would remain unmarried.

THE BEAR AND THE RABBIT HUNT BUFFALO Once upon a time there lived as
neighbors, a bear and a rabbit.

Once upon a time there lived in Palestine a very rich and pious man,
who had a son named Rabbi Hanina.

THE LITTLE MICE Once upon a time a prairie mouse busied herself all
fall storing away a cache of beans.

LAZY JACK Once upon a time there was a boy whose name was Jack, and he
lived with his mother on a common.

I only know that I believe to this hour that he WAS in the Marines
once upon a time, without knowing why.

Once upon a time he and his son went on the chase, and the lad
discerned something horned in the distance.

He had saved an old nobleman's life once upon a time, and had been a
good deal talked about on that score.

TEENY-TINY Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman lived in a
teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village.

Coyote and the Tortillas Pima (Arizona) Once upon a time, a river rose
very high and spread all over the land.

BINNORIE Once upon a time there were two king's daughters lived in a
bower near the bonny mill-dams of Binnorie.

HOW THE RABBIT LOST HIS TAIL Once upon a time there were two brothers,
one a great Genie and the other a rabbit.

Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve--
old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.

Once upon a time the Captain had been on Old Pepper's staff, so he
could cuss and blind in the most approved style.

HUDDEN AND DUDDEN AND DONALD O'NEARY There was once upon a time two
farmers, and their names were Hudden and Dudden.

Once upon a time there was a man, who was sword-bearer to one of the
Kings, and he loved a damsel of the common sort.

Origin of the Saguaro and Palo Verde Cacti Pima (Arizona) Once upon a
time an old Indian woman had two grandchildren.

IRON HANS There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest
near his palace, full of all kinds of wild animals.

But, once upon a time, a certain rich miser conceived the design of
spunging upon this Abernethy for a medical opinion.

"Mrs. Boulte has made me understand that you were--that you were fond
of her once upon a time," went on Mrs. Vansuythen.

Once upon a time there lived at Simla a very pretty girl, the daughter
of a poor but honest District and Sessions Judge.

Once upon a time, O King of the Age, I had a slipper which hardly
belonged to its kind nor ever was there seen a bigger.

THE THREE HEADS OF THE WELL NOTES AND REFERENCES TOM TIT TOT Once upon
a time there was a woman, and she baked five pies.

Once upon a time the King of Singapore ordered Badang to fetch for his
repast the fruit of _kouras_, at the river Sayang.

NAMGAY DOOLA ONCE upon a time there was a king who lived on the road
to Thibet, very many miles in the Himalaya Mountains.

THE ROSE-TREE There was once upon a time a good man who had two
children: a girl by a first wife, and a boy by the second.

BRIAR ROSE A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a
great way off, where there were in those days fairies.

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK There was once upon a time a poor widow who had
an only son named Jack, and a cow named Milky-white.

THE THREE SILLIES Once upon a time there was a farmer and his wife who
had one daughter, and she was courted by a gentleman.

THE STORY OF THE THREE BEARS Once upon a time there were Three Bears,
who lived together in a house of their own, in a wood.

The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing ONCE UPON A TIME a Wolf resolved to
disguise his appearance in order to secure food more easily.

Once upon a time, Anne had been made to sit with Gilbert for
punishment and sad and bitter had been the consequences thereof.

UNKTOMI AND THE ARROWHEADS There were once upon a time two young men
who were very great friends, and were constantly together.

The Birds and the Flood Pima (Arizona) Once upon a time, when all the
earth was flooded, two birds were hanging above the water.

MOTI GUJ--MUTINEER ONCE upon a time there was a coffee-planter in
India who wished to clear some forest land for coffee-planting.

It is true that once upon a time a man called Urashima Taro did live
in this village, but that is a story three hundred years old.

The Oxen and the Butchers THE OXEN once upon a time sought to destroy
the Butchers, who practiced a trade destructive to their race.

SIR GAWAIN'S MARRIAGE Once upon a time King Arthur held his court in
merry Carlisle, when a damsel came before him and craved a boon.

[318] THE PATRON OF HEBRON Once upon a time some Jews lived in Hebron,
few in number, but pious and good, and particularly hospitable.

"If you had been headstrong once upon a time, and I had been weak, you
see, my Carlo, you would have been a domestic tyrant, I a rebel."

[FN#641] Once upon a time a rich farmer lived in a village near
Korzian, who was in the habit of going into the wood late in the
evening.

THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE Once upon a time, a mouse, a
bird, and a sausage, entered into partnership and set up house
together.

MOTHER HOLLE Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters;
one of them was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy.

[FN#434] It fortuned once upon a time that two men went forth from the
same place, one foregoing the other, and they forgathered by the way.

Thus, for example, we are told that once upon a time the Wotyaks of
the Malmyz district in Russia were distressed by a series of bad
harvests.

It is related that once upon a time there was a man which was an
astronomer[FN#396] and he had a wife who was singular in beauty and
loveliness.

GOLD-TREE AND SILVER-TREE Once upon a time there was a king who had a
wife, whose name was Silver-tree, and a daughter, whose name was Gold-
tree.

Once upon a time the king of the country, by name Athamas, married a
wife Nephele, and had by her a son called Phrixus and a daughter named
Helle.

The Land and the Name Once upon a time, about four hundred years ago,
there was published in old Spain a novel which soon became unusually
popular.

Once upon a time we knew country life so well and city life so little,
that we illustrated city life as that of a closely crowded country
district.

A Malay poem relates how once upon a time in the city of Indrapoora
there was a certain merchant who was rich and prosperous, but he had
no children.

THE FISH AND THE RING Once upon a time, there was a mighty baron in
the North Countrie who was a great magician that knew everything that
would come to pass.

He goes on to relate how, once upon a time, a wicked Jew bewitched the
prophet Mohammed himself by tying nine knots on a string, which he
then hid in a well.

This personage is a strolling demon or esprit follet, who, once upon a
time, got admittance into a monastery as a scullion, and played the
monks many pranks.

Once upon a time I taught school in the hills of Tennessee, where the
broad dark vale of the Mississippi begins to roll and crumple to greet
the Alleghanies.

Once upon a time as he went along, behold, a bit of iron nail pierced
his finger and drew blood; so he sat down and wiping away the blood,
bound up his finger.

THE "WASNA" (PEMMICAN) MAN AND THE UNKTOMI (SPIDER) Once upon a time
there appeared from out of a large belt of timber a man attired in the
fat of the buffalo.

In training he had been, once upon a time, an engineer and built dams
that broke and bridges that fell down and wharves that ftoated away in
the spring floods.

SEDJARET MALAYOU LEGENDS OF THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO [Translated by M.
Devic and Chauncey C. Starkweather] Once upon a time lived King
Iskender, son of King Darab.

A STORY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FOR LITTLE CHILDREN By Elizabeth
Harrison Once upon a time, far across the great ocean there lived a
little boy named Christopher.

The Frogs' Complaint Against the Sun ONCE UPON A TIME, when the Sun
announced his intention to take a wife, the Frogs lifted up their
voices in clamor to the sky.

DOCTOR KNOWALL There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb,
who drove with two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a
doctor for two talers.

THE MAGPIE'S NEST Once upon a time when pigs spoke rhyme And monkeys
chewed tobacco, And hens took snuff to make them tough, And ducks went
quack, quack, quack, O!

THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS There was once upon a time an old
goat who had seven little kids, and loved them with all the love of a
mother for her children.

The author of Mahaparinirvana-sutra[FN#210] has a parable to the
following effect: 'Once upon a time a hunter skilled in catching
monkeys alive went into the wood.

Once upon a time there was a good young man--a first-class officer in
his own Department--a man with a career before him and, possibly, a K.
C. G. E. at the end of it.

There was a certain married lady at Ephesus, once upon a time, so
noted for her chastity that she even drew women from the neighboring
states to come to gaze upon her!

CHAPTER VIII PWYLL, PRINCE OF DYVED Once upon a time Pwyll was at
Narberth, his chief palace, where a feast had been prepared for him,
and with him was a great host of men.

MOLLY WHUPPIE Once upon a time there was a man and a wife had too many
children, and they could not get meat for them, so they took the three
youngest and left them in a wood.

THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX FIRST STORY There was once upon a time an old
fox with nine tails, who believed that his wife was not faithful to
him, and wished to put her to the test.

THE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS Once upon a time when pigs spoke
rhyme And monkeys chewed tobacco, And hens took snuff to make them
tough, And ducks went quack, quack, quack, O!

and the fox answered:--They tell this tale of The Flea and the Mouse
Once upon a time a mouse dwelt in the house of a merchant who owned
much merchandise and great stories of monies.

THE RECOVERY OF THE HAMMER Once upon a time it happened that Thor's
hammer fell into the possession of the giant Thrym, who buried it
eight fathoms deep under the rocks of Jotunheim.

And it so chanced that once upon a time he said to his attendants
"Take ye ten days food and forage;" and, when they obeyed his bidding,
he set out with his suite for sport and disport.

My spirit urged me, once upon a time, to go forth into the country of
the Infidels; and I strove with it and struggled to put away from me
this inclination; but it would not be rejected.

Once upon a time, a boy, with nothing to depend upon but his own
vigorous nature, was thrown into the thick of the struggle for
existence in the midst of a great manufacturing population.

[134] Once upon a time it happened that a leper bathed at this place
of the Sea of Tiberias, and hardly had he come in contact with the
waters of Miriam's well when he was instantly healed.

THE QUEEN BEE Two kings' sons once upon a time went into the world to
seek their fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of
living, so that they could not return home again.

The indefinite temporal adverb, related to the indefinite pronoun
"iu", is "iam", sometime, any time, ever, once upon a time: Iam mi
rakontos la aferon al vi, sometime I will tell you the affair.

Coyote and the Quails Pima (Arizona) Once upon a time, long ago,
Coyote was sleeping so soundly that a covey of quails came along and
cut pieces of fat meat out of his flesh without arousing him.

Once upon a time old Lafferty had been caught with a gang that had
stolen cows from several of the poor people of the neighborhood and
butchered them in an old shanty back of the yards and sold them.

Once upon a time, there were four girls, who had enough to eat and
drink and wear, a good many comforts and pleasures, kind friends and
parents who loved them dearly, and yet they were not contented.

The story is told that once upon a time the commission of generals
being in consultation together in their public office, he bade
Sophocles the poet give his opinion first, as the senior of the board.

The Quack Frog A FROG once upon a time came forth from his home in the
marsh and proclaimed to all the beasts that he was a learned
physician, skilled in the use of drugs and able to heal all diseases.

And, once upon a time, Arthur was holding his court at Caerleon upon
Usk; and behold, there came to him ambassadors, wise and prudent, full
of knowledge and eloquent of speech, and they saluted Arthur.

`Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began
in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and
they lived at the bottom of a well--' `What did they live on?

THE BLUE LIGHT There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years
had served the king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could
serve no longer because of the many wounds which he had received.

Once upon a time it happened That the hero, Lemminkainen, Went upon
the lake a-fishing, Was not home at early evening, As the cruel night
descended; To the village went Kyllikki, To the dance of merry
maidens.

So Dicky won certain rises of salary--ample for a boy--not enough for
a wife and child-- certainly too little for the seven-hundred-rupee
passage that he and Mrs. Hatt had discussed so lightly once upon a
time.

********************** Once upon a time there used to glide past the
window of my room the fair, curly, wavering, golden head of Nilushka
the idiot, a lad looking like a thing which the earth has begotten of
love.

Once upon a time it happened that when Nahum, the great and pious
teacher, was journeying to Rome on a political mission, he was without
knowledge robbed of the gift he bore to the Emperor as an offering
from the Jews.

Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all
her suitors; and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their rank
--kings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons,
and knights.

THE WELL OF THE WORLD'S END Once upon a time, and a very good time it
was, though it wasn't in my time, nor in your time, nor any one else's
time, there was a girl whose mother had died, and her father had
married again.

Once upon a time there lived a queen -- a powerful monarch -- who
reigned over one of the greatest kingdoms of the universe; and a
minister; and this minister wished much to injure the queen, whom once
he had loved too well.

THE STORY OF THE PET CRANE There was once upon a time a man who did
not care to live with his tribe in a crowded village, but preferred a
secluded spot in the deep forest, there to live with his wife and
family of five children.

At the expiration of this period, she said to her father: "I recollect
that once upon a time thou didst cast into yonder pit a man that had
fetched thy rod from the garden for thee, and thou didst commit a
great trespass thereby.

In the Kitab Tarykh the following is told: "There was once upon a time
a Persian king named Khrosrou, remarkable among all the kings of
Persia for his power, his greatness of character, his goodness, and
the purity of his morals.

LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD] Once upon a time there was a
dear little girl who was loved by everyone who looked at her, but most
of all by her grandmother, and there was nothing that she would not
have given to the child.

In one of the lodges of the park--that lodge within sight of the house
where, once upon a time, when the waters were out down in
Lincolnshire, my Lady used to see the keeper's child--the stalwart
man, the trooper formerly, is housed.

[FN#156] Once upon a time I entered a vineyard to eat of its grapes;
and, whilst so doing behold, I saw a falcon stoop upon a partridge and
seize him; but the partridge escaped from the seizer and, entering his
nest, hid himself there.

Once upon a time Al-Malik al-Násir[FN#399] sent for the Wális or
Chiefs of Police of Cairo, Bulak, and Fostat[FN#400] and said to them,
"I desire each of you to recount me the marvellousest thing that hath
befallen him during his term of office.

Aristophanes (Vespæ, 1446) refers to his murder by the Delphians and
his fable beginning, "Once upon a time there was a fight;" while the
Scholiast finds an allusion to The Serpent and the Crab in Pax 1084;
and others in Vespæ 1401, and Aves 651.

JACK AND HIS GOLDEN SNUFF-BOX Once upon a time, and a very good time
it was, though it was neither in my time nor in your time nor in any
one else's time, there was an old man and an old woman, and they had
one son, and they lived in a great forest.

Would you believe it that practically every one of them came from
Mariposa once upon a time, and that there isn't one of them that
doesn't sometimes dream in the dull quiet of the long evening here in
the club, that some day he will go back and see the place.

SWEETHEART ROLAND There was once upon a time a woman who was a real
witch and had two daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she
loved because she was her own daughter, and one beautiful and good,
and this one she hated, because she was her stepdaughter.

Once upon a time there dwelt in Egypt a confectioner who had a wife
famed for beauty and loveliness; and a parrot which, as occasion
required, did the office of watchman and guard, bell and spy, and
flapped her wings did she but hear a fly buzzing about the sugar.

But once upon a time four Witches leagued together to depose the king
and rule the four parts of the kingdom themselves; so when the Ruler,
my grandfather, was hunting one day, one Wicked Witch named Mombi
stole him and carried him away, keeping him a close prisoner.

Once upon a time--" And though for the first two or three minutes the
men appeared not to hear him, and continued their planing and chopping
as before, the moment came when the soft tenor accents caught and held
the men's attention, as they trickled and burbled forth.

Once upon a time, I may tell you, an anchorite happened to be on his
travels; and as the people came pressing around him, and kneeling to
him, and tearfully beseeching him with the words, '0h holy father,
intercede for us with the wolves which are devouring our substance!

They seem never to have been a warlike race; passing through their
country, we once observed a large stone cairn, and our guide favoured
us with the following account of it:- "Once upon a time, our
forefathers were going to fight another tribe, and here they halted
and sat down.

Once upon a time, indeed, there was a great assemblage of the Ionians
and the neighbouring islanders at Delos, who used to come to the
festival, as the Ionians now do to that of Ephesus, and athletic and
poetical contests took place there, and the cities brought choirs of
dancers.

when; whenever, whensoever; upon which, on which occasion; at another,
at a different, at some other, at any- time; at various times; some
one of these days, one of these days, one fine morning; eventually,
some day, by and by, sooner or later; some time or other; once upon a
time.

There is a story which even you have preserved, that once upon a time
Phaëthon, the son of Helios, having yoked the steeds in his father's
chariot, because he was not able to drive them in the path of his
father, burnt up all that was upon the earth, and was himself
destroyed by a thunderbolt.

Whereupon the Sultan rejoined, "If so it be, I will relate to thee, O
Shaykh Mohammed, an adventure of my own and 'tis as follows:--Once
upon a time a man went forth his town and he made companionship with
another upon the way, and each one of them bore with him a bag of meal
and a flask of water.

Yet from the moment that he began his narrative everyone declined to
believe it, and laughed at his broken verbiage as, frequently invoking
the Deity, and cursing, and brandishing his awl, and viciously
swallowing spittle, he shouted amid general ridicule: "Once-once upon
a time there lived a man.

But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient
of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon
a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for
a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up
in small tacks, d'ye see?

___________________________________________________________________ As
the President finished reading the paper (which I beg leave to assure
my readers is a bona fide copy of one written by bona fide girls once
upon a time), a round of applause followed, and then Mr. Snodgrass
rose to make a proposition.

I know I used to have--I don't know whether I have now, but I had once
upon a time--a bad reputation among students for setting up a very
high standard of acquirement, and I dare say you may think that the
standard of this old examiner, who happily is now very nearly an
extinct examiner, has been pitched too high.

Answered she:--Yes, it hath reached me that they tell a tale of THE
CAT[FN#166] AND THE CROW Once upon a time, a crow and a cat lived in
brotherhood; and one day as they were together under a tree, behold,
they spied a leopard making towards them, and they were not aware of
his approach till he was close upon them.

yesterday, the day before yesterday; last year, ultimo; lately &c.
(newly) 123. retrospectively; ere now, before now, till now; hitherto,
heretofore; no longer; once, once upon a time; from time immemorial,
from prehistoric times; in the memory of man; time out of mind;
already, yet, up to this time; ex post facto.

We would pass, in the Rue de l'Oiseau, before the old hostelry of the
Oiseau Flesché, into whose great courtyard, once upon a time, would
rumble the coaches of the Duchesses de Montpensier, de Guermantes, and
de Montmorency, when they had to come down to Combray for some
litigation with their farmers, or to receive homage from them.

If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the short
grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings
out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--"if I could
have settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when
I was little, I know it would have been much better for me.

Quoth Al-Maamun, "Tell me whichever is the rarer; so Mohammed al-Basri
began: "Know, then, O Commander of the Faithful that there lived once
upon a time wealthy man, who was a native of Al-Yaman;but he emigrated
from his native land and came to this city of Baghdad, whose sojourn
so pleased him that he transported hither his family and possessions.

His linen trousers had been white once upon a time, but now they were
picturesquely variegated from the dust and soot clinging to them, and
by the stains added by his young hopeful, when he sat and played on
his knees, by way of contributing his share to the glory in which his
father was resplendently arrayed.... His _Zizzit_ hung down to his
bare feet.

In a poem inscribed to Smolenskin, the editor of _Ha-Shahar_
("Daybreak"), on the occasion of the periodical's resuming publication
after an interval, the poet poured forth his afflicted soul, and
pointed out the aim he had decided to pursue: "Once upon a time I sang
of love, too, and pleasure, and friendship; I announced the advent of
days of joy, liberty, and hope.

[FN#463] It is told of Anushirwan, the Just King, that once upon a
time he feigned himself sick, and bade his stewards and intendants go
round about the provinces of his empire and the quarters of his
dominion and seek him out a mud-brick thrown away from some ruined
village, that he might use it as medicine, informing his intimates
that the leaches had prescribed this to him.

Far away in dismal Northland, Lived the singer, Youkahainen, Lapland's
young and reckless minstrel, Once upon a time when feasting, Dining
with his friends and fellows, Came upon his ears the story That there
lived a sweeter singer, On the meadows of Wainola, On the plains of
Kalevala, Better skilled in chanting legends, Better skilled than
Youkahainen, Better than the one that taught him.

And then," said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of the
table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had been
broken off, -- "and then, among other oddities, we had a patient, once
upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained himself to be a
Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in his hand, soliciting
his friends to try a small slice from the middle of his leg.

The Breslau Text c. The Macnaghten Text and the Bulak Edition d. The
same with Mr. Lane's and my Version Appendix II-- Contributions to the
Bibliography of the Thousand and One Nights and their Imitations, By
W. F. Kirby The Book Of The THOUSAND NIGHTS AND A NIGHT MA'ARUF THE
COBBLER AND HIS WIFE There dwelt once upon a time in the God-guarded
city of Cairo a cobbler who lived by patching old shoes.

It is currently reported, and commonly believed, that once upon a time
a Portuguese named Jose Pedra,--by the natives called Nyamatimbira,--
chief, or capitao mor, of Zumbo, a man of large enterprise and small
humanity,- -being anxious to ascertain if Kebrabasa could be
navigated, made two slaves fast to a canoe, and launched it from
Chicova into Kebrabasa, in order to see if it would come out at the
other end.

And he went contrary to his wife and persisted in buying stolen goods
below their value till he fell under suspicion and perished therefor:
even as perished the sparrow in the tale of THE SPARROW AND THE
PEACOCK There was once upon a time a sparrow, that used every day to
visit a certain king of the birds and ceased not to wait upon him in
the mornings and not to leave him till the evenings, being the first
to go in and the last to go out.

FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* This etext was prepared by
Col Choat colchoat@gutenberg.net.au A Portrait of the Artist as a
Young Man by James Joyce Chapter 1 Once upon a time and a very good
time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this
moocow that was coming down along the road met a nicens little boy
named baby tuckoo His father told him that story: his father looked at
him through a glass: he had a hairy face.

It was in fact only a matter of months and he could easily foresee him
participating in their musical and artistic CONVERSAZIONES during the
festivities of the Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight
flutter in the dovecotes of the fair sex and being made a lot of by
ladies out for sensation, cases of which, as he happened to know, were
on record--in fact, without giving the show away, he himself once upon
a time, if he cared to, could easily have.

For the purpose of noticing how Chaucer arranges as well as tells a
story, the following attempt at a condensed prose rendering of his
narrative may be acceptable:-- Once upon a time in Flanders there was
a company of young men, who gave themselves up to every kind of
dissipation and debauchery--haunting the taverns where dancing and
dicing continues day and night, eating and drinking, and serving the
devil in his own temple by their outrageous life of luxury.

And they tell another and a similar tale of THE FOOLISH
DOMINIE[FN#170] Once upon a time, a schoolmaster was visited by a man
of letters who entered a school and, sitting down by the host's side,
entered into discourse with him and found him an accomplished
theologian, poet grammarian, philologist and poet; intelligent, well
bred and pleasant spoken; whereat he wondered, saying in himself, "It
cannot be that a man who teacheth children in a school, should have a
perfect wit.

When another of the generals, who thought he had performed
considerable service for the Athenians, boastingly compared his
actions with those of Themistocles, he told him that once upon a time
the Day after the Festival found fault with the Festival: "On you
there is nothing but hurry and trouble and preparation, but, when I
come, everybody sits down quietly and enjoys himself;" which the
Festival admitted was true, but "if I had not come first, you would
not have come at all.

Ahem," he said--"which is the way to begin a wonderful story: Once
upon a time a young man, longing to fight for his king by land alone,
and with special fighting of his own to do hard by"--(here De Casson
looked at him keenly and a singular light came into his eyes)--"was
wheedled away upon the king's ships to France, and so 'Left the song
of the spinning-wheel, The hawk and the lady fair, And sailed away--'
But the song is old and so is the story, abbe; so here's the brief
note of it.

Here's a fable I draw from a Naturalist's book, and we'll set it
against the dicta of Jenny Do-nothing, Jenny Discretion, Jenny Wait-
for- the-Gods: Once upon a time in a tropical island a man lay sick;
so ill that he could not rise to trouble his neighbours for help; so
weak that it was lifting a mountain to get up from his bed; so
hopeless of succour that the last spark of distraught wisdom perching
on his brains advised him to lie where he was and trouble not himself,
since peace at least he could command, before he passed upon the black
highroad men call our kingdom of peace: ay, he lay there.

Now his mother was with the bride and, when the bridegroom came up and
did off her veil, the ancient dame fell to considering the beauty of
the Princess and her loveliness; and she looked around at the pavilion
which was all litten up by gold and gems besides the manifold
candelabra of precious metals encrusted with emeralds and jacinths; so
she said in her mind, "Once upon a time I thought the Sultan's palace
mighty fine, but this pavilion is a thing apart; nor do I deem that
any of the greatest Kings of ChosroÙs attained in his day to aught
like thereof; also am I certified that all the world could not build
anything evening it.

said he of the Grove; "by the heaven that is above us I fought Don
Quixote and overcame him and made him yield; and he is a man of tall
stature, gaunt features, long, lank limbs, with hair turning grey, an
aquiline nose rather hooked, and large black drooping moustaches; he
does battle under the name of 'The Countenance,' and he has for squire
a peasant called Sancho Panza; he presses the loins and rules the
reins of a famous steed called Rocinante; and lastly, he has for the
mistress of his will a certain Dulcinea del Toboso, once upon a time
called Aldonza Lorenzo, just as I call mine Casildea de Vandalia
because her name is Casilda and she is of Andalusia.

Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation
that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner; and
being reminded by other authorities of a certain inquiry into the
evidence for such deaths reprinted in the sixth volume of the
Philosophical Transactions; and also of a book not quite unknown on
English medical jurisprudence; and likewise of the Italian case of the
Countess Cornelia Baudi as set forth in detail by one Bianchini,
prebendary of Verona, who wrote a scholarly work or so and was
occasionally heard of in his time as having gleams of reason in him;
and also of the testimony of Messrs. Fodere and Mere, two pestilent
Frenchmen who WOULD investigate the subject; and further, of the
corroborative testimony of Monsieur Le Cat, a rather celebrated French
surgeon once upon a time, who had the unpoliteness to live in a house
where such a case occurred and even to write an account of it--still
they regard the late Mr. Krook's obstinacy in going out of the world
by any such by-way as wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive.