Scandinavian Epics The Volsunga Saga Russian and Finnish Epics The Kalevala, or the Land of Heroes Epics of Central Europe and of the Balkan Peninsula Hebrew and Early Christian Epics Arabian and Persian Epics The Shah-Nameh, or Epic of Kings Indian Epics The Ramayana The Mahabharata Chinese and Japanese Poetry American Epics Index ILLUSTRATIONS Odin Bids Farewell to Brunhild before He Surrounds Her by a Barrier of Fire (Frontispiece) From the painting by Th. Pixis Oedipus Solving the Sphinx's Riddle From the painting by Ingres Achilles Disguised as a Girl Testing the Sword in Ulysses' Pack From the painting by Battoni Circe and Ulysses' Companions Turned into Swine By L. Chalon Venus Meeting Aeneas and Achates Near Carthage From the painting by Cortona Roland at Roncevaux From the painting by L.F. Guesnet The Palace Where Inez de Castro Lived and was Murdered Dante Interviewing Hugues Capet From an illustration by R. Galli Hermione Finds Tancred Wounded From the painting by Nicolas Poussin The Body of Elaine on its Way to King Arthur's Palace By Gustave Dora Una and the Red Cross Knight From the painting by George Frederick Watts The Heralds Summon Lucifer's Host to a Council at Pandemonium By Gustave Dore The Dead Sigfried Rome Back to Worms From the painting by Th. Pixis St. John the Evangelist at Patmos Writing the Apocalypse From the painting by Correggio Sita Soothing Rama to Sleep From a Calcutta print The Monk Breaks into the Robbers' House to Rescue White Aster From a Japanese print "It is in this vast, dim region of myth and legend the sources of the literature of modern times are hidden; and it is only by returning to them, by constant remembrance that they drain a vast region of vital human experience, that the origin and early direction of that literature can be recalled."--Hamilton Wright Mabie. FOREWORD Derived from the Greek _epos_, a saying or oracle, the term "epic" is generally given to some form of heroic narrative wherein tragedy, comedy, lyric, dirge, and idyl are skilfully blended to form an immortal work. "Mythology, which was the interpretation of nature, and legend, which is the idealization of history," are the main elements of the epic. Being the "living history of the people," an epic should have "the breadth and volume of a river." All epics have therefore generally been "the first-fruits of the earliest experience of nature and life on the part of imaginative races"; and the real poet has been, as a rule, the race itself.