[Illustration: GUY EARL OF WARWICK]

LEGENDS THAT EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW

A SELECTION OF THE GREAT LEGENDS OF ALL TIMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

EDITED BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE

ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY BLANCHE OSTERTAG




INTRODUCTION


If we knew how the words in our language were made and what they have
meant to successive generations of the men and women who have used them,
we should have a new and very interesting kind of history to read. For
words, like all other creations of man, were not deliberately
manufactured to meet a need, as are the various parts of a bicycle or of
an automobile; but grew gradually and slowly out of experiences which
compelled their production. For it is one of the evidences of the
brotherhood of men that, either by the pressure of necessity or of the
instinct to describe to others what has happened to ourself and so make
common property of personal experience, no interesting or influential or
significant thing can befall a man that is not accompanied by a desire
to communicate it to others.

The word legend has a very interesting history, which sheds light not