Top-of-the-World Stories for Boys and Girls / Translated from the Scandinavian Languages

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected; hyphenation has been regularised. Close quotes have not been added at the end of paragraphs followed by more dialogue.
Illustrated by
Published, August, 1916 Copyright, 1916, By Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. All Rights Reserved Top-of-the-World Stories Norwood Press BERWICK & SMITH CO. Norwood, Mass. U. S. A.

IT WAS A LIFE AND DEATH RACE.
In memory of ten happy years,
this little book is dedicated to the
children of John, William, Anna, Martha, and George.
Not for my dear usual public of little children have I gathered these stories from Scandinavian authors, but for boys and girls who have reached a stage which warrants a rather free range in Story Land. For here are to be encountered creatures and events, deeds and ideas, unsuited to youngest readers, but which have legitimate attraction for boys and girls from nine to fourteen years old—the age varying according to the child's maturity and previous reading.
Five of these stories were written by the noted Finnish author, Zachris Topelius, who wrote them, and much else, for the children of Finland and Sweden more than fifty years ago. His loving sympathy for children, and his earnest desire to write only what was wholesome and good for them, shine through all his literary work for the young. His Läsning för Barn (Reading for Children) in several volumes, contains stories, true and imaginative, poems, songs, hymns, and many charming plays for children to act. Although a Finn, Topelius wrote in the Swedish language.
By the kind permission of Miss Margaret Böcher I have made use of her excellent rendering of Sampo Lappelil .
Of the other stories presented here, two ( The Forest Witch and The Testing of the Two Knights ) were translated from the Danish, and one ( Anton's Errand, or The Boy Who Made Friends by the Way ) from the Norwegian.