The Storytellers’ Bequest to all Boys and Girls
To all girls and boys, but only for the time of their childhood, the flowers of the field, the blossoms of the wood, with the right to play among them freely, according to the custom of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. We give to them the banks of the brooks and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein and the white clouds that float over the giant trees, and we leave to the children the long, long days to be merry in a thousand ways and the night and the moon, and the train of the milky way to wonder at.
We give to all boys all idle fields and commons, where ball may be played, all pleasant waters where one may swim, all snowclad hills where one may coast, and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, they may skate, to have and to hold the same for the period of their boyhood. And to all boys, all boisterous inspiring sports of rivalry and the disdain of weakness, and undaunted confidence in their own strength. We give the powers to make lasting friendships and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively we give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices.
And to all girls the yellow fields and green meadows with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof, the woods with their appurtenances, the squirrels and birds and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there to be found.
And to all children wheresoever they may be, each his own place at the fireside at night with all the pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without hindrance, and without any encumbrance of care, and to them also we give memory, and to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poets and their imaginary world, with whatever they may need, such as the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and the stars of the sky, to enjoy freely and fully without tithe or diminution until the happiness of old age crown them with snow.
By Williston Fish (Adapted)
King Arthur’s Tomb, Innsbruck
“That Arthur who with lance in rest,
From spur to plume a star of tournament,
Shot thro’ the lists of Camelot, and charged
Before the eyes of ladies and of Kings.”
—Tennyson.
The Storytellers’ Magazine
VOLUME 1 JULY, 1913 NUMBER 2
“Heaven lies about us in our infancy”
“In tholde dayes of the King Arthur,
Of which the Britons speke great honour
All was this land fulfilled of faery.”
—The Canterbury Tales.
The Story of King Arthur
(In Twelve Numbers)
By Winona C. Martin
After the last story is told (the Passing of Arthur), and the children standing with Sir Bevidere upon the highest crag of the jutting rock, see the warrior King pass with the three tall queens in the dusky barge beyond the limits of the world, they too, wonder gazing on the splendor of his Passing. Though defeated in the last weird battle in the west, yet he was victorious in his ideals, for he became the spiritual King of his race.
“From the great deep to the great deep he goes.” The children hear but do not quite understand—it is the better for that because something of the mystery of life and death is awakened in the child. In that it serves its highest purpose. It helps the child to realize that there are things in life that eye have not seen nor ear heard, and let it not be forgotten that while we use these great stories for formal work, the formal is always the result of the creative.
“The letter killeth; the spirit giveth life.” Thus it is that child and teacher leave the low plains of the “lesson hearer” and hand in hand walk the upland pastures of the soul.—Ed.