No, but seriously folks. . .
The tavern is dimly lit by rushlight and the logs glowing brightly in the hearth. It is full tonight as would be expected for a market day in Godville. Cheesemongers have travelled far to be here today, and the Horn and Strumpet is filled with the heady aromas of beer, pipe tobacco and over-ripe Camembert. Snippets of semi-coherent conversation rise and struggle for supremacy before, like the pipe smoke, they drift upwards to be lost amongst the black and ancient timber beams of the ceiling.
Then suddenly, silence falls like a leaden blanket upon the revellers. Nobody stirs, not even the mice in the skirting-boards or the starlings in the eaves. No-one that is except the old, bearded and somewhat ragged man in the corner. He has sat alone all evening and left the young folk to their merriment. Well, not quite alone. For he, Tireisias, has his thoughts and his tales for company. And now, with a quivering hand he gestures all to be silent. In a voice surprisingly strong and commanding he begins his tale. . .