Myths and Legendary Heroes | Page 2

SCANDINAVIA
The Story of Frithiof Adapted by Julia Goddard
Havelok Adapted by George W. Cox and E.H. Jones
The Vikings Adapted by Mary Macgregor
HERO OF GERMANY
Siegfried Adapted by Mary Macgregor

HERO OF FRANCE
Roland Adapted by H.E. Marshall
HERO OF SPAIN
The Cid Adapted by Robert Southey
HERO OF SWITZERLAND
William Tell Adapted by H.E. Marshall
HERO OF PERSIA
Rustem Adapted by Alfred J. Church

ILLUSTRATIONS
JASON SNATCHED OFF HIS HELMET AND HURLED IT
(Frontispiece)
OUT FLEW A BRIGHT, SMILING FAIRY
HE CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS AND SPRANG INTO THE
CHARIOT
ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE
THE PUNISHMENT OF LOKI
THE PRINCESS LABAM ... SHINES SO THAT SHE LIGHTS UP
ALL THE COUNTRY
HIAWATHA IN HIS CANOE
SO DANAE WAS COMFORTED AND WENT HOME WITH
DICTYS
ORPHEUS SANG TILL HIS VOICE DROWNED THE SONG OF
THE SIRENS
THEY LEAPT ACROSS THE POOL AND CAME TO HIM
THESEUS LOOKED UP INTO HER FAIR FACE
SIR GALAHAD
ROBIN HOOD IN AN ENCOUNTER
THE HERO'S SHINING SWORD PIERCED THE HEART OF THE
MONSTER
WILLIAM TELL AND HIS FRIENDS
(Many of the illustrations in this volume are reproduced by special
permission of E.P. Dutton & Company, owners of American rights.)

INTRODUCTION
With such a table of contents in front of this little foreword, I am quite

sure that few will pause to consider my prosy effort. Nor can I blame
any readers who jump over my head, when they may sit beside kind old
Baucis, and drink out of her miraculous milk-pitcher, and hear noble
Philemon talk; or join hands with Pandora and Epimetheus in their play
before the fatal box was opened; or, in fact, be in the company of even
the most awe-inspiring of our heroes and heroines.
For ages the various characters told about in the following pages have
charmed, delighted, and inspired the people of the world. Like fairy
tales, these stories of gods, demigods, and wonderful men were the
natural offspring of imaginative races, and from generation to
generation they were repeated by father and mother to son and daughter.
And if a brave man had done a big deed he was immediately celebrated
in song and story, and quite as a matter of course, the deed grew with
repetition of these. Minstrels, gleemen, poets, and skalds (a
Scandinavian term for poets) took up these rich themes and elaborated
them. Thus, if a hero had killed a serpent, in time it became a fiery
dragon, and if he won a great battle, the enthusiastic reciters of it had
him do prodigious feats--feats beyond belief. But do not fancy from
this that the heroes were every-day persons. Indeed, they were quite
extraordinary and deserved highest praise of their fellow-men.
So, in ancient and medieval Europe the wandering poet or minstrel
went from place to place repeating his wondrous narratives, adding new
verses to his tales, changing his episodes to suit locality or occasion,
and always skilfully shaping his fascinating romances. In court and
cottage he was listened to with breathless attention. He might be
compared to a living novel circulating about the country, for in those
days books were few or entirely unknown. Oriental countries, too, had
their professional story-spinners, while our American Indians heard of
the daring exploits of their heroes from the lips of old men steeped in
tradition. My youngest reader can then appreciate how myths and
legends were multiplied and their incidents magnified. We all know
how almost unconsciously we color and change the stories we repeat,
and naturally so did our gentle and gallant singers through the
long-gone centuries of chivalry and simple faith.
Every reader can feel the deep significance underlying the myths we
present--the poetry and imperishable beauty of the Greek, the strange
and powerful conceptions of the Scandinavian mind, the oddity and

fantasy of the Japanese, Slavs, and East Indians, and finally the queer
imaginings of our own American Indians. Who, for instance, could ever
forget poor Proserpina and the six pomegranate seeds, the death of
beautiful Baldur, the luminous Princess Labam, the stupid jellyfish and
shrewd monkey, and the funny way in which Hiawatha remade the
earth after it had been destroyed by flood?
Then take our legendary heroes: was ever a better or braver company
brought together--Perseus, Hercules, Siegfried, Roland, Galahad, Robin
Hood, and a dozen others? But stop, I am using too many
question-marks. There is no need to query heroes known and admired
the world over.
As true latter-day story-tellers, both Hawthorne and Kingsley retold
many of these myths and legends, and from their classic pages we have
adapted a number of our tales, and made them somewhat simpler and
shorter in form. By way of apology for this liberty (if some should so
consider it), we humbly offer a paragraph from a preface to the
"Wonder Book"