A Book of Myths is a collection of ancient myths and legends retold for general readers. Drawing on Greek, Roman, Teutonic, Celtic and other traditions, it presents stories of gods, heroes and the natural world. It is worth listening to as an inviting introduction to the enduring tales that shaped many cultures.
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Cover illustration generated by AI.
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
Cover of A Book of Myths.
End papers: A boy sits in a chair reading. Apparitions of hi
A
BOOK OF MYTHS
BY JEAN LANG
(MRS. JOHN LANG)
WITH SIXTEEN ORIGINAL
DRAWINGS IN COLOUR
BY HELEN STRATTON
Publisher's device
THOMAS NELSON & SONS NEW YORK PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA “WHAT WAS HE DOING, THE GREAT GOD PAN, DOWN IN THE REEDS BY THE RIVER?” (See page 209) PREFACE Just as a little child holds out its hands to catch the sunbeams, to feel and to grasp what, so its eyes tell it, is actually there, so, down through the ages, men have stretched out their hands in eager endeavour to know their God. And because only through the human was the divine knowable, the old peoples of the earth made gods of their heroes and not unfrequently endowed these gods with as many of the vices as of the virtues of their worshippers. As we read the myths of the East and the West we find ever the same story. That portion of the ancient Aryan race which poured from the central plain of Asia, through the rocky defiles of what we now call “The Frontier,” to populate the fertile lowlands of India, had gods who must once have been wholly heroic, but who came in time to be more degraded than the most vicious of lustful criminals. And the Greeks, Latins, Teutons, Celts, and Slavonians,
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