a dark place where the sun never shone, nor could the rain pierce
through. Then the noise of the men's shouts and the barking of the dogs
awakened the boar, and up he sprang, bristling all over his back, and
with fire shining from his eyes. In rushed Ulysses first of all, with
his spear raised to strike, but the boar was too quick for him, and ran
in, and drove his sharp tusk sideways, ripping up the thigh of Ulysses.
But the boar's tusk missed the bone, and Ulysses sent his sharp spear
into the beast's right shoulder, and the spear went clean through, and
the boar fell dead, with a loud cry. The uncles of Ulysses bound up his
wound carefully, and sang a magical song over it, as the French soldiers
wanted to do to Joan of Arc when the arrow pierced her shoulder at the
siege of Orleans. Then the blood ceased to flow, and soon Ulysses was
quite healed of his wound. They thought that he would be a good warrior,
and gave him splendid presents, and when he went home again he told all
that had happened to his father and mother, and his nurse, Eurycleia. But
there was always a long white mark or scar above his left knee, and about
that scar we shall hear again, many years afterwards.




HOW PEOPLE LIVED IN THE TIME OF ULYSSES


When Ulysses was a young man he wished to marry a princess of his own
rank. Now there were at that time many kings in Greece, and you must be
told how they lived. Each king had his own little kingdom, with his
chief town, walled with huge walls of enormous stone. Many of these
walls are still standing, though the grass has grown over the ruins of
most of them, and in later years, men believed that those walls must have