AUTHOR'S PREFACE. ALTHOUGH English children have long been delighted with the legends of Germany and Scandinavia as collected in the Household Stories' of Grimm, and in Dasent's Popular Tales from the Norse,' no use has yet been made of the materials of the Eddas and Sagas of Northern Europe for the amusement and the instruction of the Young. In the belief that these materials may be presented in a form as delightful as that of the old stories with which all are familiar, I have clothed a few of the Edda and other narratives in language which, I trust, the youngest child may understand with ease, and from which even they who have left childhood behind them may derive some enjoyment. |