ATHOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS

摘要

'In southwark at the Tabard as I lay...'Is Chaucer's brief name-check of the Canterbury pilgrims' departure point the earliest mention of a hotel in English literature? It depends on what you regard as a hotel. There's hospitality space to be found pre-Chaucer, such as Heorot, the great mead-hall of Hrothgar, king of the Danes, in Beowulf. There, guests bedded down with the household. This was the mini-break from hell, of course, for those who happened to be slumbering there when the fearsome monster Grendel or his still more terrifying Mum came a- slaughtering.