"Off with her head!" Head, heal, teal, tell, tall, tail... "Mine is a long and a sad tale!" "It is a long tail, certainly, but why do you call it sad?" Turn witch into fairy. Witch, winch, wench, tench, tenth, tents, tints, tilts, tills, fills, falls, fails, fairs, fairy! Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, "Let us both go to law: I will prosecute you. -- Come, I'll take no denial; We must have a trial: For really this morning I've nothing to do." Furies, buries, buried, burked, barked, barred, barrel... Said the mouse to the cur, "Such a trial, dear Sir, With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath." "I'll be judge, I'll be jury," Said cunning old Fury: "I'll try the whole cause, and condemn you to death." Quilt, guilt, guile, guide, glide, slide, slice, spice, spine, spins, shins, shies, shier, sheer, sheet...
Note: this text contains fragments from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland [1] and Lewis Carroll's papers [2], published posthumously in The Lewis Carroll Picture Book, ed. by Stuart Dodgson Collingwood, Unwin, London, 1899, chapter 6, "Games and Puzzles", called "Doublets" also "Word-Links". Line 1 comes from chapter 8 of [1]; Line 2 comes from p. 279 of [2]; lines 3-5 come from chapter 3 of [1] (more of this text can be found here; lines 6-8 come from pages 285-286 of [2]; lines 9-16 come from chapter 3 of [1]; line 17 comes from pages 285-286 of [2]; lines 18-25 come from chapter 3 of [1]; and lines 26-27 come from pages 285-286 of [2].
Text Authorship:
- by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832 - 1898), as Lewis Carroll
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by György Ligeti (1923 - 2006), "A Long, Sad Tale", 1988-1993, from Nonsense Madrigals, no. 8 [sung text checked 1 time]
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 27
Word count: 152