Books in MacMillan Classics series

Just So Stories is a collection of Rudyard Kipling's animal tales in which we learn about "How the Whale got his Throat," "How the Camel got his Hump," "How the Rhinoceros got his Skin," "How the Leopard got his Spots," "The Elephant's Child," "The Sing-Song of Old Man Kangaroo," "The Beginning of the Armadilloes," "How the First Letter was Written," "How the Alphabet was Made," "The Crab that Played with the Sea," "The Cat that Walked by Himself," and "The Butterfly that Stamped." These witty, inventive stories have delighted generations of children.

The following narrative is not so much a story as a biography. My hero is not an imaginary one; he was a real flesh and blood man who reigned as King of Norway just nine centuries ago. The main facts of his adventurous career--his boyhood of slavery in Esthonia, his life at the court of King Valdemar, his wanderings as a viking, the many battles he fought, his conversion to Christianity in England, and his ultimate return to his native land--are set forth in the various Icelandic sagas dealing with the period in which he lived.