children of the country--that is, in drinking, eating, and sleeping; in
eating, sleeping, and drinking; and in sleeping, drinking, and eating.

In his youth he studied hard under a very learned man, called Master
Tubal Holofermes, and, after studying with him for five years and three
months, he learnt so much that he was able to say the alphabet
backwards. About this time, the king of Numidia sent out of the country
of Africa to Grangousier, the hugest and most enormous mare that was
ever seen. She was as large as six elephants, and of a burnt sorrel
colour with dapple grey spots; but, above all, she had a horrible tail.
For it was little more or less as great as the pillar of St. Mars,
which, as you know, is eighty-six feet in height.

When Grangousier saw her, he said, "Here is the very thing to carry my
son to Paris. He shall go there and learn what the study of the young
men of France is, and in time to come he shall be a great scholar!"

The next morning, after, of course, drinking, Gargantua set out on his
journey. He passed his time merrily along the highway, until he came a
little above Orleans, in which place there was a forest five-and-thirty
leagues long and seventeen wide. This forest was most horribly fertile
and abundant in gadflies and hornets, so that it was a very purgatory
for asses and horses. But Gargantua's mare handsomely avenged all the
outrages committed upon beasts of her kind. For as soon as she entered
the forest, and the hornets gave the attack, she drew out her tail and
swished it about, and swept down all the trees with as much ease as a
mower cuts grass. And since then there has been neither a forest nor a
hornet's nest in that place, for all the country was thereby reduced to
pasture land.