PREFACE

THE aim of the "Romance Readers," of which " Children of Odin" forms the fourth, is to provide children in all grades of schools with simple reading-books, which are also an introduction to the great literatures of the world. For there is no reason why the opportunity of the reading-lesson should not be taken to set a high ideal both of style and subject-matter before our pupils.

For this reason, not only have the stories contained in these readers been chosen with great care, but an attempt has been made to tell them in language which is in some degree worthy of the sources from which they are derived. Stories for children must be told simply, but they need not be told childishly; above all, any approach to slang or to the "clichés" of cheap journalism should be carefully avoided Teachers often deplore the want of opportunity for teaching English composition, but the best of all ways to learn how to write well is to read nothing but good English from the first.

Many thanks are due to Messrs. Sampson Low and

Marston for their kind permission to include the ballad

by Robert Buchanan.

NOTE.

THERE has naturally been some difficulty in representing by English letters the pronunciation of Old Norse names. A rough system of phonetics has been employed at the head of each piece, in which the consonants or vowels have their ordinary values. The only exception is that a and a should be given continental values.

INTRODUCTION

THE stories which you will read in this book were first told long ago by the people living in the northern parts of Europe, in the lands which are now called Norway and Sweden and Iceland. Very little was known about them till the time of Pliny, a historian who lived about fifty years after the time of Christ. Describing these distant lands, he says of them, "The farthest of all islands known or spoken of is Thule, in which there be no nights at all about midsummer, and contrariwise no days in midwinter; and each of these times they suppose do last six months, all day or all night. It is said that farther on, within six days' sailing from Britain, there lieth the Island Mictis, in which white lead is found, and that the Britons do sail thither in vessels covered with leather all round and well sewed. There are some men who speak of other islands, namely, Scandia, Dumna, Bergos,

C.O.

B