Tales of a Wayside Inn

Tales of a Wayside Inn

At a Sudbury inn, six friends and their landlord exchange tales across two evenings and a rainy day. Their verse narratives range from Paul Revere's ride and King Olaf's campaigns to animal neglect, religious persecution, secret courtships, a ghost ship, and a dead mother's return; between stories they debate faith, cruelty, and the sources of legends. The guests leave the next morning, and the narrator later recalls that three are dead and two are overseas.

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · Genre: Narrative Poetry, Ballad, Legend · 60 chapters · 70,669 words

First lines

One Autumn night, in Sudbury town, / Across the meadows bare and brown, / The windows of the wayside inn / Gleamed red with fire-light through the leaves / Of woodbine, hanging from the eaves / Their crimson curtains rent and thin.

As ancient is this hostelry / As any in the land may be, / Built in the old Colonial day, / When men lived in a grander way, / With ampler hospitality; / A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, / Now somewhat fallen to decay, / With weather-stains upon the wall, / And stairways worn, and crazy doors, / And creaking and uneven floors, / And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall.

Genres

Tags

storytelling · inns · courtship · religious persecution · animal welfare · naval warfare · ghost ships · Norse legends

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Tales of a Wayside Inn is listed on Textopian as a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, dated Date unknown.

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Contents

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