ONCE there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy. This story is about something that happened to them when they were sent away from London during the war because of the air-raids. They were sent to the house of an old Professor who lived in the heart of the country, ten miles from the nearest railway station and two miles from the nearest post office. He had no wife and he lived in a very large house with a housekeeper called Mrs Macready and three servants. (Their names were Ivy, Margaret and Betty, but they do not come into the story much.) He himself was a very old man with shaggy white hair which grew over most of his face as well as on his head, and they liked him almost at once; but on the first evening when he came out to meet them at the front door he was so odd-looking that Lucy (who was the youngest) was a little afraid of him, and Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was blowing his nose to hide it.

There was a peasant. He was poor and dreamt to become rich one day.
Once he was plowing the land with his oxen. Suddenly his plow pushed against a jug. The peasant looked into it and what did he see there? He saw that the jug was full of gold coins!
The peasant was beside himself with joy. He put the jug into a sack with grain. He hid the jug, raised his head, and saw a man riding on a horse along the field.

Once upon a time in a far away land a merchant was preparing to set out on a long journey. This merchant had three daughters, and he asked all of them what they would like as gifts for themselves when he returned from his voyage. The first daughter requested a golden crown, and the second one wanted a crystal mirror. The third daughter asked only for "the little scarlet flower."

Once upon a time in a land far, far away an evil queen sat with her magic mirror in her hand. She was appalled when this mirror revealed to her that she was no longer the most beautiful in all the land, but that a young princess was instead.

Once upon a time... a woodcutter lived happily with his wife in a pretty little log cabin in the middle of a thick forest. Each morning he set off singing to work, and when he came home in the evening, a plate of hot steaming soup was always waiting for him.

Once upon a time there lived a king. He had two viziers. One would always sit to the right of him and was his right-hand vizier. The other would always sit to the left of him and was named his left-hand vizier.
One day the king and the right-hand vizier went hunting. They had just started hunting when a crow flew above them and cawed something.
" What did it say?" the king asked his vizier.

Once upon a time...in the immense Russian steppe, lay a little village where nearly all the inhabitants bred horses. It was the month of October, when a big livestock market was held yearly in the main town. Two brothers, one rich and the other one poor, set off for market. The rich man rode a stallion, and the poor brother a young mare.

Once there was drought in one state. There was no snow in winter and no rain in spring. The peasants' crops did not grow. Famine came. People began to die.
The king of the state did not know what to do, or how to save his people from inevitable death. He thought and thought, but could not think of anything. Then he decided to give up his throne to his vizier for a year, and he left to go to his brother, the king of a neighboring country.

Once upon a time in a far away land Tsar Saltan sat listening to the future plans of three sisters. One of these sisters said that she wanted to give birth to a great warrior, and employ the other two sisters in her charge. Tsar Saltan decided to marry this sister, making the other two sisters become very jealous. These two women decided to do everything they could to make the married sister's life unhappy.

There are good people in the world and some who are not so good. There are also people who are shameless in their wickedness.

Wee Little Havroshechka had the bad luck to fall in with such as these. She was an orphan and these people took her in and brought her up, only to make her work till she couldn't stand. She wove and spun and did the housework and had to answer for everyth ing.