Soon I came upon an old man, warming his blood in the sunshine. I gave him greeting, and he creased his face with a smile, saying: ‘Stay a while and I will tell you a tale.’
So I stayed, and he told me a tale I had never heard before. It was called ‘The Man who could not eat Porridge’; but I have forgotten it now.
Further down the highway was the edge of a Pine Forest, dark and full of years, and as I passed I heard Time and Death whispering and chuckling together in the gloom. I hurried along and came near to the End of the World. There I met an Angel, sitting on a great flat stone.
‘Tell me, Angel,’ I said, ‘what do you do in the High Hall of Heaven in the long evenings?’
‘We tell tales,’ replied the Angel, ‘but they are better tales than you have ever heard or read. Go burn your books, and sit among the crows until you can understand their tongue!’