_The reason for choosing the story of Alexander to tell you is this: it was the earliest and one of the most interesting of the stories of the Middle Age. Everyone liked it, everyone knew something about it, and everyone told it his own way. Even the animals (in a tale of Reynard the Fox) liked it, and one of them told it to the lion. All the English poets of those days knew and loved it. If, then, you could read any of the Middle Age tales, you could read this one._
_So you must now fancy that times are changed; you are sitting in some great castle-hall, and all the people round you are in dresses like those that Mr. Mason has drawn for you; perhaps you are sitting on a throne like the queen in the picture, and I am sitting on the stool before you, and I begin to tell you a story of the bravest knight in the world, his wars, and the wonderful things he saw and did. And as all the young folk gather round and listen, if the older folk come with them and bring the great Latin book to see if I tell the story right, when they can get it (for it is very rare) they will find that I have taken the story-teller’s privilege--I have left out much that was not interesting, and I have told you some things the old story-tellers used to leave out._
_Perhaps you will find that there is too much fighting in the story: if so, remember that it was nearly the only game people played at in those days, so that it took the place of rowing or tennis, cycling or cricket among the young people then. But the fighting had this serious side to it--that a young lady might wake any morning and find an army besieging her home, ready to burn it down and carry her away prisoner. So, you see, everyone understood about fighting and took an interest in hearing of it._
_And now I leave you with your story. If it pleases you, and shows you who were the heroes of our ancestors, and what were the stories they delighted in, it will have reached the object of_
CHAPTER I. HOW ANECTANABUS WAS KING OF EGYPT, AND WHY HE FLED INTO THE LAND OF MACEDON 1
CHAPTER II. OF OLYMPIAS AND ANECTANABUS, OF THE MAGIC HE WROUGHT, AND OF THE BIRTH OF ALEXANDER 9
CHAPTER III. HOW ALEXANDER TAMED THE HORSE BUCEPHALUS, AND HOW HE DID HIS FIRST DEED OF ARMS 21