Copyright, 1889,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
E. P. 12
PREFACE.
When we go back to the early history of any people, we find that fact and fiction are strangely blended, and that the stories told are largely made up of traditions distorted and exaggerated by imagination and time. The myth, however, is valuable as representing the first steps of a nation in the evolution of its literature from a barbaric state, and as indicating special national characteristics.
The myths of Greece, for example, are chiefly derived from the traditions extant when the alphabet was invented, and are preserved in the poetic stories of Homer and Virgil. Combined, they make that mythology which grew up in Greece, and which now so largely permeates the literature of every civilized language.
The first stories given in this book are myths. They stand first in the order of precedence because they stand first in the order of time.