In this article for The Guardian, Kate Lyons explores the opening lines to fairytales in different languages.

Like the author, upon reading this I felt that English’s ‘Once upon a time…’ opening was lacklustre by comparison. I’ve no doubt become numb to it as I read out at least one story book per day at work.

I’ve since changed my mind – ‘Once upon a time…’ can do a fine job of conjuring the quixotic, dreamy world of fairy stories. One need only loosen their taut adult mind and allow the feeling of the words take hold.

Side note: It wasn’t included in the article, but the Japanese opening for fairytales is 「昔々…」 which translates to ‘Long, long ago…’.

(Via The Morning News.)