Foreword

T HIS is a tale of heroes and their fearless deeds, of grievous wrongs not wholly righted, and of a strange first voyage through perilous seas. Whether it be true or untrue, of that you must judge for yourselves; but it is not very different from certain old, old stories which wise men once believed and which poets and scholars have repeated in many varying forms. When you have read it, you surely will agree that the heroes performed their parts with courage and right good will, as manful men would act when moved by adventurous and worthy aims. They lived when the world was in its childhood and life was a wondrous holiday. Therefore they saw in earth and air many strange and awe-inspiring things invisible to us of this workaday age, and they were stirred by heroic impulses unknown to men whose lives are cast in these later times of science and unpoetic fact.