Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year Part 5

4. A good description of an ancient forge is given.

Of what did it consist? How is iron handled to-day in modern iron foundries and steel mills?

THE WONDERFUL ARTISAN

BY JAMES BALDWIN

There are enough Greek legends to fill several volumes. They relate the doings of the G.o.ds and heroes of ancient Greece, and endeavor to account for the origin of plants and animals and the founding of cities. This story no doubt contains many facts but it is chiefly fiction.

While Athens was still only a small city there lived within its walls a man named Daedalus (ded'a-lus), who was the most skillful worker in wood and stone and metal that had ever been known. It was he who taught the people how to build better houses and how to hang 5 their doors on hinges and how to support the roofs with pillars and posts. He was the first to fasten things together with glue; he invented the plumb line and the auger; and he showed seamen how to put up masts in their ships and how to rig the sails to them with ropes. He 10 built a stone palace for aegeus, the young king of Athens, and beautified the Temple of Athena which stood on the great rocky hill in the middle of the city.

Daedalus had a nephew named Perdix, whom he had taken when a boy to teach the trade of builder. But 15 Perdix was a very apt learner and soon surpa.s.sed his master in the knowledge of many things. His eyes were ever open to see what was going on about him, and he learned the lore of the fields and the woods. Walking one day by the sea he picked up the backbone of a great fish, and from 20 it he invented the saw. Seeing how a certain bird carved holes in the trunks of trees, he learned how to make and use the chisel. Then he invented the wheel which potters use in molding clay; and he made of a forked stick the first pair of compa.s.ses for drawing circles; and he studied out many other curious and useful things.

Daedalus was not pleased when he saw that the lad was 5 so apt and wise, so ready to learn, and so eager to do.

"If he keeps on in this way," he murmured, "he will be a greater man than I; his name will be remembered and mine will be forgotten."

Day after day, while at his work, Daedalus pondered over 10 this matter, and soon his heart was filled with hatred towards young Perdix. One morning when the two were putting up an ornament on the outer wall of Athena's temple, Daedalus bade his nephew go out on a narrow scaffold which hung high over the edge of the rocky cliff 15 whereon the temple stood. Then when the lad obeyed, it was easy enough, with a blow of a hammer, to knock the scaffold from its fastenings.

Poor Perdix fell headlong through the air, and he would have been dashed in pieces upon the stones at the foot of 20 the cliff had not kind Athena seen him and taken pity upon him. While he was yet whirling through mid-air she changed him into a partridge, and he flitted away to the hills to live forever in the woods and fields which he loved so well. And to this day, when summer breezes 25 blow and the wild flowers bloom in meadow and glade, the voice of Perdix may still sometimes be heard calling to his mate from among the gra.s.s and reeds or amid the leafy underwoods.

As for Daedalus, when the people of Athens heard of his 30 dastardly deed they were filled with grief and rage--grief for young Perdix, whom all had learned to love; rage towards the wicked uncle who loved only himself. At first they were for punishing Daedalus with the death which he so richly deserved, but when they remembered what he had done to make their homes pleasanter and their lives 5 easier they allowed him to live; and yet they drove him out of Athens and bade him never return.

There was a ship in the harbor just ready to start on a voyage across the sea, and in it Daedalus embarked with all his precious tools and his young son Icarus (ik'a-rus). 10 Day after day the little vessel sailed slowly southward, keeping the sh.o.r.e of the mainland always upon the right.

It pa.s.sed Trzen and the rocky coast of Argos and then struck boldly out across the sea.

At last the famous Island of Crete was reached, and 15 there Daedalus landed and made himself known; and the King of Crete, who had already heard of his wondrous skill, welcomed him to his kingdom, and gave him a home in his palace, and promised that he should be rewarded with great riches and honor if he would but stay and practice 20 his craft there as he had done in Athens.

Now the name of the King of Crete was Minos. His grandfather, whose name was also Minos, was the son of Europa, a young princess whom a white bull, it was said, had brought on his back across the sea from distant Asia. 25 This elder Minos had been accounted the wisest of men--so wise, indeed, that Jupiter chose him to be one of the judges of the Lower World. The younger Minos was almost as wise as his grandfather; and he was brave and fa.r.s.eeing and skilled as a ruler of men. He had made all 30 the islands subject to his kingdom, and his ships sailed into every part of the world and brought back to Crete the riches of foreign lands. So it was not hard for him to persuade Daedalus to make his home with him and be the chief of his artisans.

And Daedalus built for King Minos a most wonderful palace with floors of marble and pillars of granite; and 5 in the palace he set up golden statues which had tongues and could talk; and for splendor and beauty there was no other building in all the wide earth that could be compared with it.

There lived in those days among the hills of Crete a 10 terrible monster called the Minotaur (min'o-tor), the like of which has never been seen from that time until now.

This creature, it was said, had the body of a man but the face and head of a wild bull and the fierce nature of a mountain lion. The people of Crete would not have killed 15 him if they could; for they thought that the Mighty Folk who lived with Jupiter on the mountain top had sent him among them and that these beings would be angry if anyone should take his life. He was the pest and terror of all the land. Where he was least expected, there he was 20 sure to be; and almost every day some man, woman, or child was caught and devoured by him.

"You have done so many wonderful things," said the king to Daedalus, "can you not do something to rid the land of this Minotaur?" 25

"Shall I kill him?" asked Daedalus.

"Ah, no!" said the king. "That would only bring greater misfortune upon us."

"I will build a house for him then," said Daedalus, "and you can keep him in it as a prisoner." 30

"But he may pine away and die if he is penned up in prison," said the king.

"He shall have plenty of room to roam about," said Daedalus; "and if you will only now and then feed one of your enemies to him, I promise you that he shall live and thrive."

So the wonderful artisan brought together his workmen, 5 and they built a marvelous house with so many rooms in it and so many winding ways that no one who went far into it could ever find his way out again; and Daedalus called it the Labyrinth and cunningly persuaded the Minotaur to go inside it. The monster soon lost his way 10 among the winding pa.s.sages, but the sound of his terrible bellowings could be heard day and night as he wandered back and forth vainly trying to find some place to escape.

Not long after this it happened that Daedalus was guilty of a deed which angered the king very greatly; and had 15 not Minos wished him to build other buildings for him, he would have put him to death and served him right.

"Hitherto," said the king, "I have honored you for your skill and rewarded you for your labor. But now you shall be my slave and shall serve me without hire and without 20 any word of praise."

Then he gave orders to the guards at the city gates that they should not let Daedalus pa.s.s out at any time, and he set soldiers to watch the ships that were in port so that he could not escape by sea. But although the wonderful 25 artisan was thus held as a prisoner, he did not build any more buildings for King Minos; he spent his time in planning how he might regain his freedom.

"All my inventions," he said to his son Icarus, "have hitherto been made to please other people; now I will 30 invent something to please myself."

So through all the day he pretended to be planning some great work for the king, but every night he locked himself up in his chamber and wrought secretly by candlelight.

By and by he had made for himself a pair of strong wings, and for Icarus another pair of smaller ones; and then, 5 one midnight, when everybody was asleep, the two went out to see if they could fly. They fastened the wings to their shoulders with wax, and then sprang up into the air. They could not fly very far at first, but they did so well that they felt sure of doing much better in time. 10

The next night Daedalus made some changes in the wings.

He put on an extra strap or two; he took out a feather from one wing and put a new feather into another; and then he and Icarus went out into the moonlight to try them again. They did finely this time. They flew up to 15 the top of the king's palace, and then they sailed away over the walls of the city and alighted on the top of a hill. But they were not ready to undertake a long journey yet; and so just before daybreak, they flew back home. Every fair night after that they practiced with their wings, and 20 at the end of a month they felt as safe in the air as on the ground and could skim over the hilltops like birds.

Early one morning, before King Minos had risen from his bed, they fastened on their wings, sprang into the air, and flew out of the city. Once fairly away from the island 25 they turned towards the west, for Daedalus had heard of an island named Sicily which lay hundreds of miles away, and he had made up his mind to seek a new home there.

All went well for a time, and the two bold flyers sped swiftly over the sea, skimming along only a little above 30 the waves, and helped on their way by the brisk east wind.

Towards noon the sun shone very warm, and Daedalus called out to the boy, who was a little behind him, and told him to keep his wings cool and not fly too high. But the boy was proud of his skill in flying, and as he looked up at the sun he thought how nice it would be to soar like it high above the clouds in the blue depths of the sky. 5

"At any rate," said he to himself, "I will go up a little higher. Perhaps I can see the horses which draw the sun car, and perhaps I shall catch sight of their driver, the mighty sun master himself."

So he flew up higher and higher, but his father, who was 10 in front, did not see him. Pretty soon, however, the heat of the sun began to melt the wax with which the boy's wings were fastened. He felt himself sinking through the air; the wings had become loosened from his shoulders.

He screamed to his father, but it was too late. Daedalus 15 turned just in time to see Icarus fall headlong into the waves. The water was very deep there, and the skill of the wonderful artisan could not save his child. He could only look with sorrowing eyes at the unpitying sea, and fly on alone to distant Sicily. There, men say, he lived for 20 many years, but he never did any great work nor built anything half so marvelous as the Labyrinth of Crete.

And the sea in which poor Icarus was drowned was called forever afterward by his name, the Icarian Sea.

--_Old Greek Stories._

1. Daedalus's adventures can be divided into three sections. Tell what happened in each of the three episodes.

2. For other interesting Greek legends read Baldwin's _Old Greek Stories_ or Guerber's _Myths of Ancient Greece and Rome_.

CHARLEMAGNE AND ROLAND

BY HeLeNE A. GUERBER

A series of legends centers about the great emperor of France, Charlemagne (shar'le-man), and his nephew Roland. Charlemagne's sister Bertha had married an obscure knight, Milon, and had thus incurred the anger of her brother. The following story suggests the reconciliation of the two through the forwardness of Master Roland. Roland came to be known as the greatest knight of continental Europe in the Middle Ages.

Read the selection with a view to understanding the characters of the two chief personages.