Foreword
The aim of this series of stories which, through the medium of Firdusi, mirrors so fascinatingly the legendary history of Persia, has been, not only to provide for the story-teller a treasure-house wherein may be found pure gold, refined for ready use, every coin of which may be stamped with the narrator’s own individuality for the inspiration and entertainment of any group of children, but also, indirectly, to present to older boys and girls, in attractive form, the story of the Shah-Nameh in miniature.
When the material for the stories was originally collected, the author’s idea was simply to work out for her own use in story-telling to children a picture presentation of a delightful series of tales little known to the young. Accordingly, like the fabled busy bee, she scrupled not to enter the most exclusive Persian gardens, dipping into the cup of each bright posy containing the least mite of the sweets for which she was delving—her desire being to give to this particular jar of honey not the Atkinson, or the Mohl, or the Arnold flavor alone, but a composite which should be all of these, and yet distinctly individual and unique, the point of view being not the usual one of the translator, the paraphraser, or the raconteur working upon the lines of the epitomist, but rather that of the moving picture artist and the story-teller combined.
The debt of the author, consequently, is large, and acknowledgment difficult. For while original translators of the great epic, as Mohl, in French, and Atkinson and Helen Zimmern, in English—and Arnold in his noble poem “Sohrab and Rustem”—have contributed most liberally to this series of word-pictures, yet many additional treasures also have been discovered and secured, even from general works such as, for example, Benjamin’s “History of Persia,” and altogether from sources too varied and fugitive, and too thoroughly woven into the fibre of her own text, to be individually acknowledged. The debt, however, is none the less great.
It only remains to be said that if, when started upon their mission, these stories give to children at large as much pleasure as they gave to the particular group of “heroes” for whom they were worked out, they will not only justify their right of being, but also their method of preparation, which, though without scholarly pretensions, may yet serve to make better known and loved one of the masterpieces of literature, alas, too little familiar to-day even to grown-ups well versed in European classics.
E. D. R.
Northumberland, Pa., September, 1909.
Illustrations
“But thy doom is fixed, thou Cruel One, and even now the avenger’s hand is at the door. Behold, and tremble!”
Then pressing the golden casket unto his breast, he spake unto God in his grief
Then in graceful circles she swept slowly down unto the wondering father
The two rode side by side into Zabulistan
Mad with pain, he sprang at Rustem like a wild elephant
And finally, in his perplexity, he consulted his astrologers
The days passed for both like a happy dream
They drew their long Indian swords and fell to work again
At evening they came unto a vast wood, reaching many leagues
Seated beside it a youth like unto a royal cypress
He discovered the magician deeply engaged in incantation and witchcraft
Isfendiyar seized his bow, and whiz! whiz! went a shower of arrows