The world is a wonder-palace to the child. “Everything hints at something more magical and more marvelous which is to come.” The inanimate objects about him are given living attributes; animals and flowers are endowed by his fancy with human thought and feeling. He talks to the clouds and the stars; he peoples the sky with living inhabitants; to him the winds are not “forces of nature”; they are boisterous companions or gentle friends.

This applies to the imaginative child, and there are more imaginative children than the most of us suspect. The imagination may be suppressed by older and “wiser” companions, or natural shyness may cause the imaginative fancies to remain unvoiced; but the fancies are there—bubbling over in fantastic follies or childish imagery, or kept in those hidden chambers of the soul to which grown-ups are forbidden entrance.

Because of this mental attitude, children are inherent myth-makers. And to the same mental attitude upon the part of the children of the race, is due the fund of mythological lore which has enriched the world’s literature and inspired much of its art.

To this rich store, then, the child may be introduced by means of mythological stories. Their appeal is strong because they are in harmony with his own spontaneous interests. Froebel says: “Would’st thou know how to teach the child? Observe him, and he will show you what to do.” If, then, the child so loves the myth, let us hold him and help him by means of the mythological story. Those which contain an objectionable element may readily be withheld; there are plenty which are beautiful in their form and true in their teaching.

The myth, strictly speaking, differs from the fairy story in that it personifies the forces and manifestations of nature: Aurora awakening the sleeping world with her shafts of light; Ceres presiding over the harvests of golden grain; Jove hurling the dreadful thunderbolts; and Narcissus living in the beautiful blossom which bears his name.

Few children will accept these stories as absolute statements of fact, nor need they be so presented. Whatever this personification of the universal elements may have meant to the ancient Greeks, to us it is purely imaginary; it is the fairy-land of nature. Children love to “make believe,” and their own personifications of the forces of nature, while spontaneous and vivid, are a part of their imaginative world—a part of their “make believe.” So, mythological stories are never accepted by them upon the literal plane of the true nature story, nor should they ever be so presented. When stories of the ancient gods and goddesses are told, they may be very briefly outlined as the imaginative stories of an ancient race. This will give them their true place, without in the least detracting from their charm.

The child who is made familiar with the old mythology by means of stories and verse, holds the key of understanding to the countless allusions of the world’s best literature. He may not comprehend the deeper meaning, nor understand that they were the religion of an ancient people, but when in his later reading of some masterpiece of poetry or prose he finds an allusion to Phaeton, to Apollo, or to Neptune, he will experience the same delight that comes to one who meets an old playfellow in a foreign land.

The Hero-Tale

As the child creates a world of fancy and, when left to himself, lives within it, so marvelous deeds and achievements are to him as the daily breath of our own lives. He imagines himself the hero of such wonderful and impossible adventures that when he is told of Phaeton and his mad ride, he accepts it with the same calm appreciation which is accorded the imaginings of his own creative moods. The slaying of the Gorgon is fully in harmony with his own future plans. Not that he believes in these hero tales literally, or comprehends their deeper significance, but they fit in so perfectly with his normal habit of creative fancy that they seem to him as his very own, and he loves them.

The hero-tale appeals as strongly to the child as does the myth—probably more strongly to the boy. Indeed, the myth and hero-tale are often one, for Greek and Norse mythology abound in heroes and heroic adventures, and the lad who pores breathlessly over the thrilling experiences of a Captain Kidd, would find equal delight in the story of the Wooden Horse and the Fall of Troy, were it told him in a manner suited to his age and understanding.

The story of Arion, returning victorious from the great musical contest, and threatened by the mutinous seamen of his vessel, stirs any boy to enthusiasm, as do the adventures of Perseus, who, helped by Minerva and Mercury, slew the Gorgon, Medusa.

In another field there are the merry tales of Robin Hood, the outlaw beloved of boys, with his host of adventurous followers; and the chivalrous deeds of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Stories of the knights appeal to universal boyhood. Well do I remember a story hour in which the compact body of the audience was fringed all about with boys under whose arms were shoe-blacking kits, or bundles of newspapers. They dodged in for a story, and out again for a customer, but with one voice they demanded—it was not a request—“Give us a knight story! Give us a knight story!”

Boys can be kept from reading worthless fiction if books and stories of the right sort are placed in their hands, and the surest way to make these attractive is to give them the contents or a part of the contents in story form first. Make the stories vivid, give them plenty of life and action, and Captain Kidd or Bunco Bill will pale before King Arthur and Ulysses.

The younger children will listen with greatest delight to stories of imaginary heroes, such as abound in folk-lore and myth—Jack the Giant Killer easily leading in favor, as has been proven by statistics.

Children demand definite aims, swift action, prompt reward of the good, and punishment of the evil. They do not understand complex motives nor the slow working out of nature’s retribution. This comes with later years. The story-teller must choose her subjects in accordance with the age of the child. The world of fancy gradually gives way before the world of fact, and there comes a time when the heroes of the myth and the fairy tale are received with a certain degree of scorn. They are “out-grown.” At this period the boy and girl demand heroes of flesh and blood; men who “do and dare” especially appeal to them. There must still be rapid action and swift retribution or reward, but motives begin to be understood more fully, and little by little these motives begin to be less self-centered; they touch an ever-broadening circle.

To follow this circle and select stories which fit its circumference should be the aim of mother and teacher. Here, as everywhere in teaching, the “spontaneous interests” furnish the key for selection.

The range of hero-tales is wide. Among them are the mythological and folk-lore tales previously suggested; the legendary hero-tales which are partly fact and partly fancy, such as the Knights of the Round Table, Robin Hood, and most of the medieval stories; and Bible stories, among which there are a host of heroic characters, whose moral heroism should be made the dominant note.

There are also the heroes who have traveled, explored, and dared in the interests of science, and those who have endured hardship and privation in order to carry civilization to the dark corners of the globe. There are heroes also, often unknown, who risk their lives almost daily to carry on the mechanical processes of modern civilization. Any of these will form the nucleus of stories of thrilling interest to the growing boy and girl. Let the motive for the heroic deed be felt throughout the story. Do not tack it on as a moral; let it permeate the whole narrative. It has been truly said that “To add a moral application to a story is as complete a confession of failure as to append an explanation to a joke.”

The material for hero-tales lies all about us—upon the pages of the newspaper and the magazine, as well as between the covers of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Give the boy and girl stories “clean in the warp and woof”; stories of brave, noble men and women, worthy of emulation, for “with the great, one’s thoughts and manners easily become great.”

The following story of “The Coming of Arthur” from Some Great Stories and How to Tell Them (Newson and Company), by Richard Thomas Wyche, founder of The Story-Tellers’ League, is one of the best examples known to the author of the sort of hero or knight story which all boys love, and which will lead them into the realms of the best and purest literature.

The Coming of Arthur[3]

One dark stormy night a long time ago, in a land beyond the seas, old King Uther lay upon his bed dying. He was weeping and lamenting, not so much because he was leaving this world, as because he had no son or daughter to come after him and rule England. There were two old men who stood near the king, whose names were Bleys and Merlin. When they saw that their king was silent in death, they passed out into the black night and walked down toward the ocean where the great waves came rolling in from the deep.

The night was stormy, and they noticed that the waves grew larger and larger. They counted them—one, two, three, up to the ninth—which seemed to gather half the sea. Suddenly, on the highest crest of this wave, they saw a shining ship in the form of a dragon, and all from stem to stern the deck was covered with shining people. No sooner had they seen the ship than it disappeared. But nevertheless this great wave came rolling in and tumbled at their feet. Strange to say out of this wave there rolled a little naked child, and Merlin picked it up and cried, “The King! The King! An heir for Uther!” Then the long wave swept up the beach, wrapped about the old man and flashed like fire. After which there was a calm, and the stars came out, and the elves and fairies blew their horns from cliff to cliff.

Merlin gave the little child to an old woman to nurse. He was given the name of Arthur, and as the years passed by he grew into a beautiful boy with blue eyes and golden hair. Merlin, who was a very wise old man, became the boy’s teacher.

But let me tell you a story about the boy. One day, as Arthur was walking out all alone in the sunny fields, he came upon a little girl sitting upon a bank of heath, weeping as if her heart would break, and saying: “I hate this fair world and all that’s in it.” She had been beaten for a fault of which she was not guilty. When she looked up there stood the boy, Arthur. Whether he could walk unseen like his old teacher Merlin, who was something of a wizard, she did not know, but there he stood smiling at her. He dried her tears, comforted her heart, and was a child with her. But one day after that when she saw him again he was so dignified and cold she was afraid of him. But again when she saw him his ways were sweet and they played as children together. They were golden hours for her and for him. She said then, “Some day he will be King.”

As Arthur grew into manhood he wanted a sword, as all boys did in those days. One summer day he was in his boat on the lake. All around him spread the shining water, above him bent the sky, soft and blue. He moved to the center of the lake and stopped. It was noon, and he sat thinking. Perhaps he was wondering what he would do when he became a man. Suddenly he heard the water ripple, and near by he saw, rising from the lake a white arm and hand holding a sword. Arthur reached out and took the sword and then the hand disappeared.

The hilt of the sword was in the shape of a cross, studded with jewels that sparkled and flashed. He pulled it from the scabbard and the blade was so bright that it hurt his eye to look at it. On one side of the blade he saw cut in the steel in the oldest language of all the world, the words, “Take me,” but on the other side, in the language of the people, “Cast me away.” It made him sad to think he must cast it away. He took it to his old teacher Merlin, who was then a hundred winters old. Merlin said: “‘Take me’ means that you must take the sword, clear the forest, let in the light and make broad pathways for the hunter and the knight; break up the robber bands and bandit holds; drive back the heathen that come swarming over the seas, burning the houses and killing the people.” Then he whispered into Arthur’s ear and said: “Some day you may be king. After you have ruled the land and made it better, the time will come when you may cast the sword away, but that is a long way off.”

The years passed. Not since the dark stormy night on which King Uther died had there been a strong ruler in England. The people fought among themselves. The heathen came swarming over the seas; the wild animals came from the woods and carried off the children. The land was going to ruin. One day the people came together and said: “We must make one man king.” Whom do you suppose they crowned? Merlin, with his knowledge and power, had Arthur lifted up and put on the throne. Many believed he was the rightful king, but others said: “Away with him, he is no king of ours, he is base-born.” But then Arthur spoke to the people in the hall, and asked all the young men who would help him rule the land to come forward. Many heard his manly voice and came and stood before him. He said to them: “Will you speak the truth; be pure; right the wrong; be strong, yet gentle; be true in love; obey the king and your conscience?” When they said “yes,” they kneeled before him, and he made them his knights. When they arose from the knighting, he spoke to them in a low deep voice of authority and told them that he wished to make a good king, and that he wanted them to rule the land and make the world better, and the people happier.

While he stood speaking to them, for a moment every man seemed to favor the king; their faces were radiant. Then suddenly three rays of light fell as if from heaven, and lit up the faces of three tall queens, who stood near the throne to help the king at his need. Near him stood his old teacher Merlin, and the Lady of the Lake who, it was said, made and gave him Excalibur, the wonderful sword. After that, other young men came and took the vows of knighthood, until there were hundreds of knights. They were called Knights of the Round Table.

Then King Arthur went against the heathen, and in twelve great battles drove the last one from the country. One day, as he was passing with his army through the streets of a village, he saw, standing by a castle wall, a beautiful young woman. He did not know her, nor did she know him; for Arthur was clad simply as one of his knights, and not in his kingly robes. Arthur could not forget the face. He was in love with the young woman, and wanted to make her his wife and queen. When he returned to his palace, he called Sir Bedivere and two other knights, and sent them to search for the young woman.

The young woman’s name was Guinevere, called the pearl of beauty, and her father was an old king, Leodogran, King of Camelaird. When the knights stood before him, and said, “King Arthur wishes Guinevere to be his wife and queen,” the old man spoke roughly to them, and said, “Who is Arthur, that I should give my daughter in marriage to him? He is base-born, and not the son of a king. Even though he has helped me in battle, how can I, being a king, give my daughter in marriage to a man that is not a king, or the son of a king?”

When Leodogran was persuaded to make further inquiries, and heard of Arthur’s birth and boyhood, of the wonderful sword Excalibur, of the three rays of light at his coronation, and of his pure life and great deeds, he still doubted.

He sat upon his seat and actually nodded, napped, and kept the knights waiting. But while he napped, he dreamed, and in his dream saw a great battlefield starting at his feet and sloping away as far as the eye could reach. On this field armies were passing and moving. Arthur, the newly crowned king, with his army, was victorious and glorious. When Leodogran woke up, he called the knights and said: “Yes, Guinevere, my daughter, may go.”

Some time after that, King Arthur called Sir Lancelot, his best knight and warrior, and sent him to bring the Queen-to-be to his palace. Sir Lancelot and the other knights with him rode away on horseback, while King Arthur stood and watched them from the gates as they disappeared. Guinevere was ready and came with Sir Lancelot. It was the first of May, when the earth was white with hyacinths. The woods were all abloom and seemed full of singing birds. Guinevere rode on horseback by Sir Lancelot. Each day couriers went before and pitched a tent where the Queen-to-be might rest at noon. The journey was soon at an end. Sir Lancelot had entertained Guinevere with talk of the tourney, the chase, the hunt, and of King Arthur and his noble deeds. Sir Lancelot was so strong, yet gentle and tender, that she could not help but like him, and love him. When King Arthur came out to meet her, clad in his kingly robes, he seemed so tall and dignified that she felt a little afraid of him. But she knew that she was to be his wife and queen. Straightway they went to the church, and there before the highest of altar shrines, the bishop made them man and wife, and blessed them. Then as they went from the church King Arthur’s Knights, clad in stainless white, marched before him with trumpets and a song:

And that was the coming of King Arthur.