That was one of several quick tales Beyoncé told while relating her biography in between early-career song snippets.
Then again, some of us are fable writers, developing quick tales with tortoises and hares, where right and wrong have a lovely, simple sort of sound.
Here is the ultimate get-rich-quick tale of an idle boy (a cute, raffish thief in Disney's modified version) who has the good luck to be designated the only person able to retrieve a magic, Genie-filled lamp from a subterranean cave.
Here's a quick cautionary tale related to amphibians, climate and the media — focusing on the extraordinarily charismatic harlequin frogs that have vanished from misty slopes around the tropics in the last couple of decades.
Upon a quick read, the tale of the Princess and the Pierre would seem to be yet another story of a mogul who bestows untold wealth on a glamorous younger woman and they spend millions happily ever after.
In fact, in August, when Gov. James E. McGreevey stunned the nation with his announcement that he was gay and would be resigning from office, bloggers and forums on the site were quick to spread tales (some of them unsubstantiated) of Mr. McGreevey's sexual shenanigans.
Eurosceptics in Britain have been quick to weave a tale of Irish sovereignty surrendered to Brussels bureaucrats.
What is inescapably evident, even from a quick reading of this tale of a puritanical young king who pits his authority against that of an immortal and amoral god, is the warm, thick darkness that courses through it like blood in a frightened animal.
If the warriors of the bakufu preferred "quick-moving narrative scrolls" such as war tales or legends, the production of emaki at the Heian court subsisted.
Such tales of quick riches and missed opportunities can be heard in many places these days, among people of all ages.
