The Junior Classics, vol 1 | Page 7

abandoned,
and all were kept within doors by the cold and snow. We know what

the knight's house looked like in those days. The large beamed hail or
living room was the principal room. At one end of it, on a low platform,
was a table for the knight, his family, and any visiting knights and
ladies. At the other tables on the main floor were the armed men, like
squires and retainers, who helped defend the castle from attack, and the
maids of the household.
The story-teller, who was sometimes called a bard or skald or minstrel,
had his place of honor in the center of the room, and when the meal
was over he was called upon for a story. These story-tellers became
very expert in the practice of their art, and some of them could arouse
their audiences to a great pitch of excitement. In the note that precedes
the story "The Treason of Ganelon," in the volume "Heroes and
Heroines of Chivalry," you can see how one of these story-tellers, or
minstrels, sang aloud a story to the soldiers of William the Conqueror
to encourage them as he led them into battle.
The fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm were first published in
1812. They spent thirteen years collecting them, writing them down as
they were told by the peasants in Hesse, a mountainous province of
Germany lying far removed from the great main roads.
Their friends helped them, but their best friend was the wife of a
cowherd, a strong, intelligent woman of fifty, who had a perfect genius
for storytelling. She knew she told the stories well, and that not many
had her gift. The Grimms said that though she repeated a story for them
three times, the variations were so slight as to be hardly apparent.
The American Indian stories of Manabozho the Mischief-Maker and his
adventures with the Wolf and the Woodpeckers and the Ducks were
collected in very much the same way by Henry R. Schoolcraft (1793-
1864), the explorer and traveler, who lived among the Indian tribes for
thirty years.
Mrs. Steel has told us how she collected her Hindu stories, often
listening over and over to poor story-tellers who would spoil a story in
trying to tell it, until one day her patience would be rewarded by
hearing it from the lips of the best storyteller in the village, who was

generally a boy.
As all nations have their fairy tales, you will find in this collection
examples of English, Irish, French, German, Scandinavian, Icelandic,
Russian, Polish, Serbian, Spanish, Arabian, Hindu, Chinese, and
Japanese fairy tales, as well as those recited around the lodge fires at
night by American Indians for the entertainment of the red children of
the West.
I hope the work may prove for many a boy and girl (of any age up to a
hundred) the Golden Bridge over which they can plunge into that
marvelous world of fairies, elves, goblins, kobolds, trolls, afreets, jinns,
ogres, and giants that fascinates us all, lost to this world till some one
wakes us up to say "Bedtime!"
Such excursions fill the mind with beautiful fancies and help to develop
that most precious of our faculties, the imagination.
WILLIAM PATTEN.
MANABOZHO, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER
Adapted from H. R. Schoolcraft
THERE was never in the whole world a more mischievous busybody
than that notorious giant Manabozho. He was everywhere, in season
and out of season, running about, and putting his hand in whatever was
going forward.
To carry on his game he could take almost any shape he pleased. He
could be very foolish or very wise, very weak or very strong, very rich
or very poor-just as happened to suit his humor best. Whatever anyone
else could do, he would attempt without a moment's reflection. He was
a match for any man he met, and there were few manitoes* (*good
spirits or evil spirits) that could get the better of him. By turns he would
be very kind or very cruel, an animal or a bird, a man or a spirit, and
yet, in spite of all these gifts, Manabozho was always getting himself
involved in all sorts of troubles. More than once, in the course of his

adventures, was this great maker of mischief driven to his wits' ends to
come off with his life.
To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was
living with his grandmother near the edge of a great prairie. It was on
this prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also
there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning. He would sit
by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled by, musing on the shades
of light and darkness as the day rose and fell.
For