Legends have a fascination for all classes of people, but they possess a peculiar charm for children. They constitute, in fact, a form of literature particularly fitting to the mental world of the child. In them fact and fancy are happily blended. Around the bare facts of recorded or unrecorded history, are woven the poetic ideals of a romantic people.

Nothing could be more worth a child’s reading than a story of the past that conveys not only an idea of the everyday life of real people, but represents them also as striving after ideals in various forms of beauty.

No influence is greater than the moral force of beauty. In the present volume the purpose of the writers has been to present only such legends as reveal simplicity, strength, and beauty. These qualities make their inevitable appeal to the child fancy.

The subject matter of the book has been graded for children of eight or ten years. It is, therefore, well suited for use as a supplementary reader in the fourth or fifth grade.