The Project Gutenberg EBook of Hero Tales, by James Baldwin

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Title: Hero Tales

Author: James Baldwin

Release Date: April 14, 2005 [EBook #15616]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERO TALES ***

Produced by Al Haines

HERO TALES

BY

JAMES BALDWIN

Author of "The Story of Siegfried," "The Story of Roland," "A Story of
the Golden Age," "Baldwin's Readers," etc.

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1914

COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

TO

CARRIE EDITH AND NELLIE MAY

INTRODUCTION

In the world's literature there are certain stories which, told ages
ago, can never be forgotten. They have within them that which gives
pleasure to all intelligent men, women and children. They appeal to
the sympathies, the desires, and the admiration of all sorts and
conditions of mankind. These are the stories that are said to be
immortal. They have been repeated and re-repeated in many forms and to
all kinds of audiences. They have been recited and sung in royal
palaces, in the halls of mediaeval castles, and by the camp fires of
warring heroes. Parents have taught them to their children, and
generation after generation has preserved their memory. They have been
written on parchment and printed in books, translated into many
languages, abridged, extended, edited, and "adapted." But through all
these changes and the vicissitudes of time, they still preserve the
qualities that have made them so universally popular.

Chief among these masterpieces of imagination are the tales of gods and
heroes that have come down to us from the golden age of Greece, and
particularly the tales of Troy that cluster around the narratives of
old Homer in his "Iliad" and "Odyssey." Three thousand years or more
have passed since they were first recited, and yet they have lost none
of their original charm. Few persons of intelligence are unacquainted
with these tales, for our literature abounds in allusions to them; and
no one who pretends to the possession of culture or learning can afford
to be ignorant of them.

Second only in interest, especially t