Enemy released? Old judge saving Frenchman from distant past (4,3,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
time out of mind
'distant past' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'enemy released? old judge saving frenchman' is the wordplay.
'enemy' becomes 'time' (proverbially, 'time is the enemy').
'released?' becomes 'out' (eg out of prison).
'old judge' becomes 'ofind' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'saving' indicates putting letters inside.
'frenchman' becomes 'm' (abbreviation for Monsieur).
'ofind' enclosing 'm' is 'ofmind'.
'time'+'out'+'ofmind'='TIME OUT OF MIND'
'from' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for time out of mind that I've seen before include "Crazy spell" , "Mental relaxation" , "first seen in the year dot" , "Distant past, beyond memory" , "whole of history - with 23a,24a,25a" .)