A Fairytale Part 1 - Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time...

 

Dear Reader, if ever there was a historian’s cop-out, this introduction is the epitome.

Generally, when recounting an event, both a time and a place are provided. However, this introduction provides neither. For a time, one may say “1746”, or perhaps “last week”, or (in extremely rare situations) “the same day that my aunt Ruth had her beard shaved off”; an author ought to provide some reference to when in history this recounting occurred.

Secondly, “Once Upon a Time” does not provide a location. Again, bare minimum, dear reader, would be something to the effect of “In France”, or “At my friend’s house”, or “the barbershop with a very gutsy barber”.

While it is unknown whether or not our friends, the Grimm Brothers, invented the term or simply made it popular, they are very much to blame for this current decline in information. Dear reader, certainly, when you sit down to read a fairytale, you want to obtain historical and geographical context for the story about to unfold.

Therefore, in an attempt to reverse the trend in fairytale introductions, we shall open our story thusly:

“We don’t know when or where this happened.”

 

Wait, wait – Ben, what kind of an introduction is that?

Well, Josh, it’s better than the classic version.

But you’ve totally scared them away at this point.

Josh, if this is intimidating, they will never survive the tale about the Prince in the Well.

Or for that matter, the three little pigs – it’s gruesome when you think about the huntsmen cutting out one of their hearts to bring to the queen.

Even worse – what about the prince that keeps kissing seemingly dead princesses?

Good point – Ben, have we rated this yet?...