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The events that circle round King Conor mac Nessa and Cuchulain as their principal figures are supposed to have occurred, as we gather from the legends themselves, about the first century of our era. According to one of the stories, King Conor is said to have died in a paroxysm of wrath and horror, brought on by hearing the news of the crucifixion of our Lord by the Jews. Though this story is evidently one of the few interpolations having their origin in Christian times (the main body of the legends being purely pagan), the probability that they took shape about this period is increased almost to certainty by the remarkable agreement we find in them with the accounts derived from classical writers who lived and wrote about this same period, and who comment on the habits of the Gauls of France, the Danube valley and Asia Minor, and the Belgic tribes who inhabited South-eastern Britain, with whom the Roman armies came into contact in the course of their wars of aggression and expansion. The descriptions given by Poseidonius, a century before Christ, or Diodorus, Caesar and Livy half a century later, agree remarkably with the notices found in these Irish stories of social conditions, weapons, dress, and appearance. The large wicker shields, the huge double-bladed swords lifted above the head to strike, the courage amounting to rashness of the Celt in attack, the furious onset of the scythed war-chariots, the disregard of death, the habit of rushing into battle without waiting to don their clothes, the single combats, the great feasts, the "Champion's Bit" reserved as a mark of distinction for the bravest warrior; these, and many other characteristics found in our tales are commented upon in the pages of the Roman historians. The culture represented in them is that known to archæologists as "late Celtic," called on the Continent the La Tène period, i.e. the period extending from about 400 B.C. to the first century of the Christian era; and the actual remains of weapons, ornaments, and dress found in Ireland confirm the supposition that we are dealing with this stage of culture.

IN this tale I have closely followed the lines of Tacitus's narrative, though I have idealized the character of . Claudia, the British Princess,on whose marriage with a certain Pudens Martial writes an epigram, may, perhaps, be identified with the Claudia whose salutation St. Paul conveys in his Second Epistle to Timothy. I should have been glad to identify her husband with the Pudens whose name stands so near to hers, but the difficulty of doing so seems insuperable.

CHILDREN'S STORIES OF THE GREAT SCIENTISTSBY HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHTWITH PORTRAILSI.GALILEO AND THE WONDERS OF THE TELESCOPE,1564–1642II.KEPLER AND THE PATHWAYS OF THE PLANETS,1571–1635III.NEWTON AND THE FINDING OF THE WORLD SECRET,1642–1727.IV.FRANKLIN AND THE IDENTITY OF LIGHTNING AND ELECTRICITY,1706–1790.V.CHARLES LINNAEUS AND THE STORY OF THE FLOWERS,1707–1778VI.HERSCHEL AND THE STORY OF THE STARS,1738–1822VII.RUMFORD AND THE RELATIONS OF MOTION AND HEAT,1753–1814VIII.CUVIER AND THE ANIMALS OF THE PAST,1769–1832IX.HUMBOLDT AND NATURE IN THE NEW WORLD,1769–1859X.DAVY, AND NATURE'S MAGICIANS,1778–1829XI.FARADAY AND THE PRODUCTION OF ELECTRICITY BY MAGNETISM,1791–1867XII.CHARLES LYELL AND THE STORY OF THE ROCKS,1797–1875XIII.AGASSIZ AND THE STORY OF THE ANIMAL KINGDOM,1807–1874XIV.TYNDALL, AND DIAMAGNETISM AND RADIANT HEAT,1820–1893XV.KIRCHOFF, AND THE STORY TOLD BY SUNBEAM AND STARBEAM,1824–1887XVI.DARWIN AND HUXLEY

This meeting-house of the Christians of Nicæa was really the club-house of the wool-combers of that city. The wool-combers' guild or company had, for some reason, passed to other places. Old members had died, and few or no new members had been admitted. Much of its property had been lost by the dishonesty of a treasurer. Finally the few surviving members had been glad to let the building to persons who were acting for the Christian community. No questions were asked as to the purpose for which it was to be used; but, as two or three out of the half-dozen of surviving wool-combers were Christians, it was well understood what this purpose was. It would have been, by the way, more exact to say "a burial club." This was the object for which it had been founded. Its social meetings had been funeral feasts; hence its situation in the near neighbourhood of a cemetery. This made it particularly suitable for meetings of the Christians. Assemblies held before dawn—for this was the custom—and close to a burial-ground, would be little likely to be observed.The congregation may have numbered one hundred persons, of whom at least two-thirds were men. There was a division between the sexes—that is to say, the men occupied all the seats (benches of the plainest kind) on one side of the building, and the front half of those on the other. It was easy to see that, with a very few exceptions, they were of humble rank. Many, indeed, were slaves. These wore frocks reaching down to the knees, cut square at the neck, and for the convenience of leaving the working arm free, having one sleeve only. These frocks were made of coarse black or brown serge, trimmed at the bottom with sheepskin. Two or three were sailors, clad in garments so coarse as almost to look like mats. Among the few worshippers of superior station was an aged man, who wore a dress then rarely seen, the Roman toga. The narrow purple stripe with which it was edged, and the gold ring which he wore on the forefinger of his left hand, showed that he was a knight. His order included, as is well known, the chief capitalists of Rome, and, among other speculations, was accustomed to farm the taxes. Titus Antistius—this was the old man's name—had been the agent for this purpose in Bithynia, but he had for some time retired from the occupation. His age, his blameless character, and the wealth which he dispensed with a liberal hand, helped, together with his rank, to make him the principal character in the Christian community of Nicæa. He sat on a cushioned chair, but the privilege had been conceded to him quite as much on account of his age and infirmity as of his social position.

Each of us bears about within him a dark, strange room, through the closed doors of which none but himself and God may pass to see and know what lies therein. With some the room is small, and much is left without for all the world to see and know. With some the room is very large, shutting in perchance the whole true man. And when we meet with such an one, and ask ourselves if he be great or little, good or bad, we must, if we be honest, say "I know not, for I cannot understand."Such was the great Napoleon. The strange dark room he bore within was very large. And though there be many who hold aloft a flaming torch, and cry, "Come, follow me, and I will show to you what lay in that dark place," in smoke and flare the light dies out, the darkness seems yet darker, and we know as little.So, if you ask me is this Napoleon a true hero, I say, God—who alone has seen and knows what lay in that dark room—God knows.

One influence which weighed heavily with the superstitious native was caused by a rumour circulating through all the bazaars that fate limited the English rule in India to one hundred years from the date of Clive's great victory at Plassey (1757). The sepoy troops, too, had learnt on many a battlefield to win great victories, and thought the time had come for them to recognise their own valour and secure a great destiny. Being most of them the younger sons of zemindars, or small landholders, the sepoys were full of pride and ambition: they believed that the treasures of India belonged by right to them; they were looking forward to founding a great military despotism, under which they were to be the spoilt children of fortune. It is true a sepoy's pay was only seven rupees a month, less than fourteen shillings at that period: but as a Brahmin his faith restrained him from wasting his money on gross appetite, and his simple mode of life left him a surplus from which he could help his needy relations: so that he felt himself a man of some importance. For the Hindoo possesses a strong sense of clanship, and is extremely generous in his dealings with poor kinsmen. But the Indian dustoor, or etiquette of the family, sometimes compels him to launch out into enormous expenses through which he falls deeply into debt and becomes the slave of a grasping, pitiless usurer. For instance, a private soldier has often been known to celebrate a marriage feast in such style as to necessitate the spending of three or four hundred rupees. By this means he achieves a temporary consideration amongst the native populace, while he loses permanently all peace of mind, grows discontented and infects his regiment with his own sense of wrong. For an Indian regiment was not composed of separate units like a British regiment: the soubandar-major, or native colonel, allowed his havildar, or sergeant, to recruit as many natives as he liked from his own village: so that a sepoy regiment partook of the nature of a clan in which near relations stood shoulder to shoulder, and any grievance which hurt one sepoy affected all together: this made them strong as a fighting machine, but in time of mutiny proved to be fraught with danger to our Empire, for family ties held them together against us. Some historians give the annexation of Oude as a cause for the mutiny, on the ground that the sepoy lost land by the change. Others attribute it to Russian intrigue, or Persian interference, or Mahommedan conspiracy, things difficult to prove.

It has not been possible, for lack of space, always to tell the old stories in the original words, which are, in almost all cases, the best. If any readers of this book can get a sight of two big volumes called "Drake and the Tudor Navy," by Julian Corbett, they may consider themselves fortunate. In them there are the most fascinating reproductions of pictures of old fighting ships, and old charts or maps of the taking of Cartagena, St. Domingo, and St. Augustine by Drake's ships. Here the ships are seen approaching and attacking; the towns are shown, and the soldiers, and the seas are full of wonderful curly monsters. The old charts of the invasion of the Spanish Armada show the shifting position of the fleets from day to day, and the books also contain many maps and a fine portrait.

The stories in this book are stories of brave men and women who lived many hundreds of years ago. They lived in a country which is far from ours and spoke a language very different from ours. But they struggled with tyrants as we and all people who love their freedom and their country have had to do, and we can read their story and be glad and sorry with them, just as if they were our own people and spoke our own language. For whether the story is of Arthur against the Saxons, of Alfred against the Danes, or Wallace and Bruce against the English, or of Tell and his friends against the Austrians, it is all the same, we love the men who fought for their freedom and their Fatherland. And it is very interesting to know that at the time when Bruce and Wallace were fighting for Scottish freedom, Tell and his friends were fighting for Swiss freedom, and that the battle of Morgarten the great battle of Swiss independence, which you will read about in this book, happened little more than one year after the battle of Bannockburn, which was the great battle of Scottish independence. It seems wonderful that these two mountain peoples should at the same time have been fighting for freedom against two powerful and strong nations, and not only fighting for it, but winning it.Yet some people say that William Tell never lived. Let them visit the Rütli, Tell's Platte, the Hollow Way, and let them ask themselves whether Tell lives in the hearts of his countrymen or not. At any rate I hope that these brave Swiss people will always have a place in your hearts, and I hope that you will remember that the women were brave like the men, and that they, too, helped to save their country.

For this fiction there is a slight foundation of fact. Stow, in his Chronicle (first published in 1565), says that a chapel was built in memory of those who had fallen in the battle of Barnet, about half a mile from the town. "It is now," he writes, "a dwelling-house; the top quarters remain yet." This somewhat obscure expression possibly means that, while the chapel itself had been dismantled, the priests' chamber above still remained. It has been conjectured that this dwelling-house still exists in a building known as Pymlicoe House, which stands on the west side of Hadley Green, at about the distance from Barnet specified by Stow. The name occurs in the register of Hadley parish, under date February 10, 1673-4, "a travelling woman from the pymblicoe house." I have taken the liberty of treating this conjecture as if it were a fact.The personages in this story are of course imaginary, but I have endeavoured to make their surroundings historical.The description of life at Eton is taken from a document dating from about the middle of the sixteenth century. I have ventured to ante-date it by about a hundred years. In so conservative a school the customs of 1550 might very well have been traced back for a century.I have post-dated by about as long a time the armourer whom I describe as occupying the manor-house of the Frowykes.There is no historical foundation for the description of the death of the Earl of Warwick; I fear that I cannot even plead that it is probable. The details of the escape of the Duke of Exeter are imaginary, but the outlines of the incident are real. This description of the election of an abbot has been transferred from John of Wheathampstead to his successor.I must apologize for having used a style more modern than the time to which it professes to belong. The "Paston Letters" afforded me, indeed, a model which I might have imitated; but my English would have seemed intolerably harsh to my readers, and I preferred to make my chantry priest write as he might have written had he been born a century later.I desire to express my obligations to the Rev. F. Cass, Rector of Monken Hadley, whose antiquarian knowledge has been of the greatest service to me; to Mr. Falconer Madan, one of the sub-librarians of the Bodleian, whose unfailing courtesy and kindness are known to all readers in that library; and to Mr. T. J. Jackson, of Worcester College, who communicated to me some facts about the Benedictines of Gloucester College.I am greatly indebted to the Rev. Henry Anstey's Preface to the Munimenta Academica in the Master of the Rolls' Series; to Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy Hardy's Preface to the Descriptive Catalogue of Materials Relating to the History of Great Britain and Ireland, in the same series; to the Rev. Mackenzie Walcott's Church Work and Life in English Minsters; to the Rev. Sparrow Simpson's Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul's; and to Mr. W. Blades' monograph on William Caxton. I have also drawn much from Mr. Newcome's History of St. Albans.

For two greek boys have I made this little book, which tells them in English some of the stories that they soon will read for themselves in the tongue of their forefathers.But the stories are not only for boys whose fatherland lies near the sunny sea through which ships, red-prowed and black, fared in the long-ago days.Of such great deeds, by such brave men, do they tell, that they must make the hearts of all English boys, and of boys of every nation under the sun, grow big with them.And when, in the gallant-sounding music of the Greek tongue in which the tales first were told, these boys read the story of the Siege of Troy, they must surely long to fight as fought the Greeks in days of old, and long to be heroes such as those who fought and who died without fear for the land that they loved.

I have transferred to the Isthmian Games, of which we know very little, some details of the proceedings at the great festival of Olympia. In the other parts of the story I have endeavoured to keep as closely as possible to what is known, or, at least, probable. The chronology of St. Paul's life is very uncertain; but the date which I have chosen is, I believe, accepted by some writers. In any case I may plead the licence allowed to the exigencies of fiction.ALFRED J. CHURCH

The stories which I have retold for you in this little book are not new. They are very, very old, and were known and loved by many people, both big and little, hundreds of years before Wagner was born. In the old far-off days there were very few books, and as each book cost a great deal of money not many people could afford to buy them.But in these days there were plenty of stories even though books were few. And the best story-tellers were the minstrels or singers who wandered from village to village singing songs of love and of life and of war. And the people welcomed the minstrels gladly, and gave them food and lodging, and sometimes money in return for the new songs and tales they taught.When the minstrel went away to the next village there was usually some one who could remember a great deal of what had been sung, and this he would tell over and over again in the long dark winter evenings till every grown-up man and woman knew by heart what the minstrel had sung.And the old people told the tales to their sons and daughters, and the sons and daughters told them again to their little children, and so they were never forgotten but were handed down from father to son till the time came when they were written and put into a book.Wagner is the latest of the minstrels, and he has told these stories once again and has written music to sing them to, and when you are old enough I hope you will learn to sing the songs which tell the stories as Wagner wished that they should be told.