For a long time books were all written by hand.  They were very scarce and dear, and only the wealthy could afford to have them, and few could read them.  Even great knights and nobles could not read, for they spent all their time in fighting and hunting, and had little time in which to learn.  So it came about that the monks who lived a quiet and peaceful life became the learned men.  In the monasteries it was that books were written and copied.  There too they were kept, and the monasteries became not only the schools, but the libraries of the country.

As a nation grows and changes, its literature grows and changes with it.  At first it asks only for stories, then it asks for history for its own sake, and for poetry for its own sake; history, I mean, for the knowledge it gives us of the past; poetry for joy in the beautiful words, and not merely for the stories they tell.  Then, as a nation’s needs and knowledge grow, it demands ever more and more books on all kinds of subjects.

And we ourselves grow and change just as a nation does.  When we are very young, there are many books which seem to us dull and stupid.  But as we grow older and learn more, we begin to like more and more kinds of books.  We may still love the stories that we loved as children, but we love others too.  And at last, perhaps, there comes a time when those books which seemed to us most dull and stupid delight us the most.

At first, too, we care only for the story itself.  We do not mind very much in what words it is told so long as it is a story.  But later we begin to care very much indeed what words the story-teller uses, and how he uses them.  It is only, perhaps, when we have learned to hear with our eyes that we know the true joy of books.  Yes, hear with our eyes, for it is joy in the sound of the words that makes our breath come fast, which brings smiles to our lips or tears to our eyes.  Yet we do not need to read the words aloud, the sight of the black letters on the white page is enough.

In this book I am going to tell you about a few of our greatest story-tellers and their books.  Many of these books you will not care to read for yourselves for a long time to come.  You must be content to be told about them.  You must be content to know that there are rooms in the fairy palace of our Literature into which you cannot enter yet.  But every year, as your knowledge grows, you will find that new keys have been put into your hands with which you may unlock the doors which are now closed.  And with every door that you unlock, you will become aware of others and still others that are yet shut fast, until at last you learn with something of pain, that the great palace of our Literature is so vast that you can never hope to open all the doors even to peep inside.

Chapter II THE STORY OF THE CATTLE RAID OF COOLEY

Our earliest literature was history and poetry.  Indeed, we might say poetry only, for in those far-off times history was always poetry, it being only through the songs of the bards and minstrels that history was known.  And when I say history I do not mean history as we know it.  It was then merely the gallant tale of some hero’s deeds listened to because it was a gallant tale.