Hm. Well, we're getting into territory that may be as cumbersome as your
initial pattern, but here's my last shot:

entry[ancestor::table and
not(preceding::entry[ancestor::table])]/*[self::title or self::para][1]

I don't know if the preceding axis is allowed in patterns, but if it is, this
may be a sure-fire way to get the very first entry[ancestor::table].

~ Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: Christian Roth [mailto:roth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, March 23, 2009 8:52 PM
To: XSL List
Subject: Re:  Pattern question: first child of first descendant

>But predicates aren't, so how about this:
>
>entry[ancestor::table][1]/*[self::title or self::para][1]

Unfortunately not - it has the same issue as Syd's initial pattern. The
first part does a "match all entry elements that have a table ancestor
and that are the first child of some element", which again matches all
first entry children of all the row elements in the table.

-Christian