Once upon a time never comes again ....

Once upon a time, there was a little Dutch boy who plugged a leak in a dike with his finger. Such is the story of, "Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates," a novel by Mary Mapes Dodge published in 1865. The wood cut illustration is of Hans and his sister, Gretel. Although this tale does not begin with the words, once upon a time, it is a good paradigm of the genre of story the phrase usually has been identified with over the years.

Have you ever wondered?

Have you ever wondered when and where the phrase, "once upon a time," originated?

I like it and I use it occasionally, so I decided to do a bit off "internet research" to learn the history of those four words. This is what Wikipedia has to "say" about the matter:

"Once upon a time" is a stock phrase used to introduce a narrative of past events, typically in fairy tales and folk tales. It has been used in some form since at least 1380 (according to the Oxford English Dictionary) in storytelling in the English language and has opened many oral narratives since 1600. These stories often then end with "and they all lived happily ever after", or, originally, "happily until their deaths".

The phrase is particularly common in fairy tales for younger children, where it is almost always the opening line of a tale. It was commonly used in the original translations of the stories of Charles Perrault as a translation for the French "il était une fois", of Hans Christian Andersen as a translation for the Danish "der var engang", (literally "there was once"), the Brothers Grimm as a translation for the German "es war einmal" (literally "it was once") and Joseph Jacobs in English translations and fairy tales.

The phrase is also frequently used in such oral stories as retellings of myths, fables, folklore and children's literature.

That explanation is pretty much all-inclusive, so it would seem senseless for me adding anything else to it ....

My first recollection of the phrase is in the form of my mother reading "fairy tales" to me as a small child. There were many among my favorites, including, "Rapunzel," which was among those collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, and, "The Princess and the Pea," written by Hans Christian Anderson and published in 1835. I am no longer sure what appealed to me about Rapunzel in the tower and her long hair, but I sort of assume I identified with the princess and her physical sensitivity.

Stories such as these were how my mother taught me to read and, I assume, the same is true that many mothers taught their children how to read using fairy tales. Quickly becoming a bona fide bibliophile, I continued to read these stories as I moved along immersed in the "fairy tale stage" of life .... and beyond. I can remember at some point collecting all my books which contained these types of stories and deciding to read each of them one last time before I gave them up .... and, that is what I did .... sort of ....

As for the music

Final verse of the song
"Once Upon a Time"

Once upon a time, the world was sweeter than we knew

Everything was ours; how happy we were then
But, somehow, once upon a time never comes again

Not long ago, I ran across a song entitled, "Once Upon a Time." Charles Strouse composed the melody and Lee Adams wrote the lyrics for the song, which was among the numbers in a 1962 Broadway musical play, "All American." As for the song, it might not fall into the category of "classic rock," but, all the same, I love it and I decided to include it here.

 A week from today is Valentine's Day and since it is doubtful I will post again between now and then, I will dedicate this song to Saint Valentine .... and to Geoffrey Chaucer, who in his poem, "Parlement of Foules," was the first to associate the day with romantic love .... and to all the young ladies who gave me a Valentine's Day card way, way back in elementary school.

 

Having listened to more than a dozen singers give the song a try, I settled on Vic Damone's recording as my favorite of it. His voice seems to be made to sing this song .... I think ....