The Month of May is National Share a Story Month and who better to tell a story than the gentleman born in May, Edward Lear. Here’s one.


The Owl and the Pussycat


The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea, in a beautiful pea green boat, They took some honey, and plenty of money, Wrapped up in a five pound note.


The Owl looked up to the stars above, and sang to a small guitar,


'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,


What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!'


Pussy said to the Owl, 'You elegant fowl! How charmingly sweet you sing!


O let us be married! too long we have tarried: But what shall we do for a ring?'


They sailed away, for a year and a day, To the land where the Bong-tree grows And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood


Edward Lear Born 12 May 1812. Holloway, London, England Died 29 January 1888 (aged 75) Sanremo, Liguria, Italy Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. (What! 21 kids ?) He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together. Lear suffered from health problems. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. In Lear's time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids." Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in Sanremo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named "Villa Tennyson." After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair with not one of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend. Lear is buried in Sanremo and on his headstone are inscribed these lines from Tennyson...


... all things fair. men,


With such a pencil, such a pen. You shadow forth to distant I read and felt that I was there.


Lear was known to introduce himself with his long name: "Mr Abebika kratoponoko Prizzikalo Kattefello Ablegorabalus Ableborinto phashyph" or "Chakonoton the Cozovex Dossi Fossi Sini Tomentilla Coronilla Polentilla Battledore & Shuttlecock Derry down Derry Dumps" which he based on Aldiborontiphoskyphorniostikos. All sounds Greek to us.


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With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, With a ring at the end of his nose.


'Dear pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling Your ring?' Said the Piggy, 'I will.'


So they took it away, and were married next day By the Turkey who lives on the hill.


They dined on mince, and slices of quince, Which they ate with a runcible spoon; And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,


They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, They danced by the light of the moon.


Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.


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