Otto of the Silver Hand | Page 3

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This Project Gutenberg Etext was prepared by: Angus Christian


Otto Of the Silver Hand
by Howard Pyle

CONTENTS
I. The Dragon's House, II. How the Baron Went Forth to Shear, III.
How the Baron Came Home Shorn, IV. The White Cross on the Hill, V.
How Otto Dwelt at St. Michaelsburg, VI. How Otto Lived in the
Dragon's House, VII. The Red Cock Crows on Drachenhausen, VIII. In
the House of the Dragon Scorner, IX. How One-eyed Hans Came to
Trutz-Drachen, X. How Hans Brought Terror to the Kitchen, XI. How
Otto was Saved, XII. A Ride for Life, XIII. How Baron Conrad Held
the Bridge, XIV. How Otto Saw the Great Emperor,

FOREWORD.
Between the far away past history of the world, and that which lies near
to us; in the time when the wisdom of the ancient times was dead and
had passed away, and our own days of light had not yet come, there lay
a great black gulf in human history, a gulf of ignorance, of superstition,
of cruelty, and of wickedness.
That time we call the dark or middle ages.
Few records remain to us of that dreadful period in our world's history,
and we only know of it through broken and disjointed fragments that
have been handed down to us through the generations.
Yet, though the world's life then was so wicked and black, there yet
remained a few good men and women here and there (mostly in
peaceful and quiet monasteries, far from the thunder and the glare of
the worlds bloody battle), who knew the right and the truth and lived
according to what they knew; who preserved and tenderly cared for the

truths that the dear Christ taught, and lived and died for in Palestine so
long ago.
This tale that I am about to tell is of a little boy who lived and suffered
in those dark middle ages; of how he saw both the good and the bad of
men, and of how, by gentleness and love and not by strife and hatred,
he came at last to stand above other men and to