Bulfinchs Mythology

Bulfinch's Mythology

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Bulfinch's Mythology, by Thomas
Bulfinch (#4 in our series by Thomas Bulfinch)
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Title: Bulfinch's Mythology
Author: Thomas Bulfinch
Release Date: January, 2004 [EBook #4928] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 27,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK,
BULLFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY ***

Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team.

BULFINCH'S MYTHOLOGY
THE AGE OF FABLE
THE AGE OF CHIVALRY
LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE
BY THOMAS BULFINCH
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME
[Editor's Note: The etext contains all three sections.]

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE
No new edition of Bulfinch's classic work can be considered complete
without some notice of the American scholar to whose wide erudition
and painstaking care it stands as a perpetual monument. "The Age of
Fable" has come to be ranked with older books like "Pilgrim's

Progress," "Gulliver's Travels," "The Arabian Nights," "Robinson
Crusoe," and five or six other productions of world-wide renown as a
work with which every one must claim some acquaintance before his
education can be called really complete. Many readers of the present
edition will probably recall coming in contact with the work as children,
and, it may be added, will no doubt discover from a fresh perusal the
source of numerous bits of knowledge that have remained stored in
their minds since those early years. Yet to the majority of this great
circle of readers and students the name Bulfinch in itself has no
significance.
Thomas Bulfinch was a native of Boston, Mass., where he was born in
1796. His boyhood was spent in that city, and he prepared for college
in the Boston schools. He finished his scholastic training at Harvard
College, and after taking his degree was for a period a teacher in his
home city. For a long time later in life he was employed as an
accountant in the Boston Merchants' Bank. His leisure time he used for
further pursuit of the classical studies which he had begun at Harvard,
and his chief pleasure in life lay in writing out the results of his reading,
in simple, condensed form for young or busy readers. The plan he
followed in this work, to give it the greatest possible usefulness, is set
forth in the Author's Preface.
"Age of Fable," First Edition, 1855; "The Age of Chivalry," 1858; "The
Boy Inventor," 1860; "Legends of Charlemagne, or Romance of the
Middle Ages," 1863; "Poetry of the Age of Fable," 1863; "Oregon and
Eldorado, or Romance of the Rivers,"1860.
In this complete edition of his mythological and legendary lore "The
Age of Fable," "The Age of Chivalry," and "Legends of Charlemagne"
are included. Scrupulous care has been taken to follow the original text
of Bulfinch, but attention should be called to some additional sections
which have been inserted to add to the rounded completeness of the
work, and which the publishers believe would meet with the sanction of
the author himself, as in no way intruding upon his original plan but
simply carrying it out in more complete detail. The section on Northern
Mythology has been enlarged by a retelling of the epic of the
"Nibelungen Lied," together with a summary of Wagner's version of
the legend in his series of music-dramas. Under the head of "Hero
Myths of the British Race" have been included outlines of the stories of

Beowulf, Cuchulain, Hereward the Wake, and Robin Hood. Of the
verse extracts which occur throughout the text, thirty or more have
been added from literature which has appeared since Bulfinch's time,
extracts that he would have been likely to quote had he personally
supervised the new edition.
Finally, the index has been thoroughly overhauled and, indeed, remade.
All the proper names in the work have been entered, with references to
the pages where they occur, and a concise explanation or definition of
each has