[Illustration: MEDEIA AND JASON WITH THE GOLDEN FLEECE] MYTHS THAT EVERY CHILD SHOULD KNOW A SELECTION OF THE CLASSIC MYTHS OF ALL TIMES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE EDITED BY HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE ILLUSTRATED AND DECORATED BY BLANCHE OSTERTAG NEW YORK Doubleday, Page & Company 1906 NOTE The editor and publishers wish to express their appreciation of the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., and the Macmillan Company, by means of which they have been enabled to reprint stories from Hawthorne's "Wonder Book" and "Tanglewood Tales," from "In the Days of Giants," from "Norse Stories," from Church's "Stories from Homer," and from Kingsley's "Greek Heroes." CONTENTS INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I. THE THREE GOLDEN APPLES (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") II. THE POMEGRANATE SEEDS (Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales") III. THE CHIMÆRA (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") IV. THE GOLDEN TOUCH (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") V. THE GORGON'S HEAD (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") VI. THE DRAGON'S TEETH (Hawthorne's "Tanglewood Tales") VII. THE MIRACULOUS PITCHER (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") VIII. THE PARADISE OF CHILDREN (Hawthorne's "Wonder Book") IX. THE CYCLOPS (Church's "Stories from Homer") X. THE ARGONAUTS (Kingsley's "Greek Heroes") XI. THE GIANT BUILDER ("In Days of Giants") XII. HOW ODIN LOST HIS EYE ("In Days of Giants") XIII. THE QUEST OF THE HAMMER ("In Days of Giants") XIV. THE APPLES OF IDUN ("Norse Stories") XV. THE DEATH OF BALDER ("Norse Stories") XVI. THE STAR AND THE LILY (Miss Emerson's "Indian Myths") INTRODUCTION In many parts of the country when the soil is disturbed arrow heads are found. Now, it is a great many years since arrow heads have been used, and they were never used by the people who own the land in which they appear or by their ancestors. To explain the presence of these roughly cut pieces of stone we must recall the weapons with which the Indians fought when Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, and Spaniards first came to this part of the world. There may be no authentic history of Indians in the particular locality in which these old-fashioned weapons come to light, but their presence in the ground is the best kind of evidence that Indians once lived on these fields or were in the habit of hunting over them. In many parts of the country these arrow heads are turned up in great numbers; museums large and small are plentifully supplied with them; and they form part of the record of the men who once lived here, and of their ways of killing game and destroying their enemies. Wherever there are arrow heads there have been Indians.