"Legendary" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... virtues and accomplishments of their legendary school hero gave ample scope, as the reader may surmise, for spirited declamation; and on the present occasion more Welchers than Riddell were startled by the sudden and vehement outburst of the patriotic hymn. Indeed, ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... of their traditions, illustrated by elaborate notices of their peculiar customs and manners, would be both instructive and amusing, I set myself down to the reading of the books which should add to the fund of legendary lore I had acquired by my residence among them. In all my travels, and these have been through every state but one in the American Union, and the "territories," with the exception of Michigan and the "North Western," my inquiries ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... humanitarian strivings. The war-weary masses judged him not by what he had achieved or attempted in the past, but by what he proposed to do in the future. And measured by this standard, his spiritual statue grew to legendary proportions. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... or Khizr, a marvellous legendary figure, see vols. iv. 175; v. 334. The worship of Helios (Apollo) is not extinct in mod. Greece where it survives under the name of Elias. So Dionysus has become St. Dionysius; Bacchus the Drunken, St. George; and Artemis, St. Artemides the healer ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... glowing feelings belongs to its most beautiful adornments; if the faithful direction of the heart to the invisible and eternal is the ground on which at all times the most lovely flowers of poetry have sprouted forth, these legendary poems of early Germany, in their lovely heartiness, in their unambitious limitation, and their pious sense, deserve a friendly acknowledgment. What man has considered the pious images in the prayer-books of the Middle Ages, the unadorned innocence, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Catholic ecclesiastic, and may well have been one of the presbyters or bishops of the churches in which the institution of a monarchical episcopate took root.[64] The narratives peculiar to Matthew have the character rather of legendary developments than of genuine reminiscences. The historical value of these additions is nil. As a witness to fact, Matthew ranks below Mark, and even below Luke.[65] In particular, the chapters about the ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... be anything but picturesque, is nevertheless not without interest. It is the Creccanford of the "Saxon Chronicle," and was the scene of the half-legendary final battle between the Britons here and Hengist, who utterly discomfited them, so that we read they forsook all this valley, even, so we are asked to believe, those strange caves which they are said to have burrowed in the chalk for their retreat, and which are so plentiful hereabouts, ...
— England of My Heart—Spring • Edward Hutton
... the highway for the Northmen into the heart of Carolingian France. Saumur blends the tenth century and the sixteenth together in the names of Gelduin and Du Plessis; Chinon brings into contact the age of the Plantagenets and the age of Joan of Arc. From the mysterious dolmen and the legendary well to the stone that marks the fusillade of the heroes of La Vendee there is a continuous chain of historic event in these central provinces. Every land has its pet periods of history, and the brilliant chapters of M. Michelet are hardly needed to tell us how thoroughly ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... legendary side, which is always in evidence in the case of a celebrated man,—that gossip, for example, which avers that Maupassant was a high liver and a worldling. The very number of his volumes is a protest to the contrary. One could ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... "the original place of the poet's confinement." It was, as Shelley says (see his letter to Peacock, November 7, 1818), "a very decent dungeon;" but it was not Tasso's. The setting of the story was admitted to be legendary, but the story itself, that a poet was shut up in a madhouse because a vindictive magnate resented his love of independence and impatience of courtly servitude, was questioned, only to be reasserted as historical. The publication of Tasso's letters by Guasti, in 1853, a review ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... that the theory is contradicted by all experience of ancient literatures, and is in itself the reverse of consistent. "The artists of antiquity," says Helbig, with perfect truth, "had no idea of archaeological studies.... They represented legendary scenes in conformity with the spirit of their own age, and reproduced the arms and implements and costume that they saw around them." [Footnote: L'Epopee Homerique, p. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... some old Adam of our ancestors, sleeps in all of us till the fit circumstance shall call it into action; and, for as sober as he now seemed, Hob had given once for all the measure of the devil that haunted him. He was married, and, by reason of the effulgence of that legendary night, was adored by his wife. He had a mob of little lusty, barefoot children who marched in a caravan the long miles to school, the stages of whose pilgrimage were marked by acts of spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... porticos, in the city; it seated three hundred and eighty-five thousand spectators. How vast a city, which could spare nearly four hundred thousand of its population to see the chariot-races! Beyond was the Aventine itself. This also was rich in legendary monuments and in the palaces of the great, though originally a plebeian quarter. Here dwelt Trajan before he was emperor, and Ennius the poet, and Paula the friend of Saint Jerome. Beneath the Aventine, and a little south of the Circus Maximus, were the great Baths of Caracalla, the ruins ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... common device among barbarous or semi-civilized peoples, and even among boatmen in general. These songs often contain many interesting and important bits of history, as well as of legendary lore. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... the legendary literature of his nation had been familiar from his boyhood. Very early in life, and several years before the publication of Maler Mueller's spirited drama, his mind was powerfully impressed by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... his family lived when we first knew them, had originally formed part of the famous Temple, which in medieval times was the abode of the Templars. It was an interesting place, full of historic memories. Within these legendary walls he had accumulated countless relics of those among his early associates who were then so fast becoming heroes in the French annals. Being an intimate friend and a connection of the Comte de Barras, the chief executive under the Directory, it was to him ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... mighty fells the great glaciers—unchanging, almost, as the "everlasting hills"—gleamed in the sunlight against the azure sky, and sent floods of water down into the brimming rivers. The scalds ceased, to some extent, those wild legendary songs and tales with which they had beguiled the winter nights, and joined the Norsemen in their operations on the farms and on the fiords. Men began to grow weary of smoked rafters and frequent festivities, and to long for the free, fresh air of heaven. Some went off to drive the ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... favour of gentle blood, and in derogation of commercial opulence, is still an excellent model for all future writers of local history—there is a ground-work laid for at least a dozen ordinary novels. To say nothing of the legendary tales, which the peasantry relate of the minor families of the district, of the Bracewells, the Tempests, the Lysters, the Romilies, and the Nortons,—whose White Doe, however, has been immortalized by the poetry of Wordsworth,—can any thing be more pregnant ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 354, Saturday, January 31, 1829. • Various
... that the cultivated stranger comes among them with his philological and sociological explanations, their pretty significance seems to me to be gone. I do not care a brass farthing what they are all about; they are old, they are legendary; as performed by people who have grown up among them, and seen them practised from childhood as a matter of course, they have a certain grace of congruity about them, as the schoolmen say. But printed gravely in a book they seem to ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Wortley Montague. Notices of the Society of Gregorians alluded to by Pope. Who wrote Shakspeare's Henry VIII.? Inaccuracy of the Common Division into Acts of King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, and Twelfth Night. The Christian Iconography and Legendary Art of the Middle Ages; with especial regard to the Nimbus and Representations of the Divinity; with many illustrations. Facts for a New Biographia Britannica, consisting of unpublished Documents relating ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... history of the less civilised people out of all possibility of recognition by its own chieftains and warriors, has really interwoven in his work some part of the songs and Sagas which were still current among the older men who had shared the wanderings of Theodoric. This legendary portion, which Cassiodorus himself perhaps half despised, as being gathered not from books but from the lips of rude minstrels, is in fact the only part of his work which has ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... indeed, were the girls born in Dinwiddie since the war who had not learned reading, penmanship ("up to the right, down to the left, my dear"), geography, history, arithmetic, deportment, and the fine arts, in the Academy for Young Ladies. The brilliant military record of the General still shed a legendary lustre upon the school, and it was earnestly believed that no girl, after leaving there with a diploma for good conduct, could possibly go wrong or become eccentric in her later years. To be sure, she might remain a trifle weak in her spelling ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... right bank, is seen another picturesque ruin. No river in Europe boasts of more ruins than the Rhone. Then we reach the legendary rock called the Table du Roi. Just as AEneas and his companions made of their flat loaves, plates, and so fulfilled the Sibyl's prediction, St. Louis saw in this tabular block a dinner-table, providentially ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... time alone, on a journey through Europe. He visited many countries and capitals. To investigate the Salvation Army, he joined its ranks for a period in England. In Germany he was connected with the almost legendary, politico-religious sect which bears the name Fahrende Leute; and, again, for some time, in an immense wagon drawn by gigantic Mechlenburgers, he wandered through the mountainous Hartz forest and along the banks of the picturesque Saal; ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... would not have been?—that for an appreciable space of time I was practically in a state of stupefaction. I could do nothing but stare. I was acquainted with the legendary transmigrations of Isis, and with the story of the beetle which issues from the woman's womb through all eternity, and with the other pretty tales, but this, of which I was an actual spectator, was something new, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... the general character of the early Iranic legends appears sufficiently. Without affording any very close resemblances in particular cases, they present certain general features which are common to the legendary lore of all the Western Arians. They are romantic tales, not allegories; they relate with exaggerations the deeds of men, not the processes of nature. Combining some beauty with a good deal that is bizarre and grotesque, they are lively and graphic, but somewhat childish, having ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... barbarism; but the degraded descendants of a civilized people usually retain traditional recollections of their ancestors, or some traces of the lost civilization, perceptible in their customs and their legendary lore. The barbarism of the wild Indians of North America had nothing of this kind. It was original barbarism. There was nothing to indicate that either the Indians inhabiting our part of the continent, or their ancestors near ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... in classing it with "Newton and the Apple," "Bruce and the Spider," "Tell and the Apple," "Galvani and the Frog," "Volta and the Damp Cloth," "Washington and His Little Hatchet," a string of gems, amongst the most precious of our legendary possessions. Let no rude iconoclast attempt to undermine one of them. Even if they never occurred, it matters little. They should have occurred, for they are too good to lose. We could part with many of the actual characters of the flesh in history without ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... be remembered that at the time he wrote, AEschylus found the drama in a very primitive state. The persons represented consisted of but a single actor, who related some narrative of mythological or legendary interest, and a chorus, who relieved the monotony of such a performance by the interspersing of a few songs and dances. To AEschylus belongs the credit of creating the dialogue in the Greek drama by the introduction of ...
— Prometheus Bound and Seven Against Thebes • Aeschylus
... of wild delight from the Chasseurs he led greeted and ratified the choice. "On meurt—on ne se rend pas!" they shouted in the words which, even if they be but legendary, are too true to the spirit of the soldiers of France not to be as truth in their sight. Then, with their swords above their heads, they waited for the collision of the terrible attack which would fall on them upon every side, and strike all the sentient life out of them before the sun should be ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... appearance at the theatres in the company of a lady in Grecian dress, whose transcendent beauty and countless diamonds awake alike admiration and cupidity. Like moths around the flame, society flutters about the legendary count, and it is principally the golden youth who find in him their centre of attraction. Among the latter were more especially Albert Morcerf, the son of a general, Debray, a young and talented attache at the Foreign Office, Beauchamp, and Chateau-Renaud, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... should ever comport himself as an ordinary,—or extraordinary,—man, seems more or less preposterous; while to conceive him as endowed with dash, spirit, and a love of adventure is judged almost as absurd and impossible. The only potentate that ever appears, in legendary lore, to have indulged himself to his heart's content in the sport of adopting a disguise and going about unrecognised among his subjects, is the witty and delightful hero of the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainment,' ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... the tree is still in my recollection, beneath which I lay and first entered upon the enchanting perusal of Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry. The taste of another person had strongly encouraged my own researches into this species of legendary lore; but I had never dreamed of an attempt to imitate what gave me so much pleasure." He then speaks of some successful metrical translations which he made at the High School; but in original rhyme he was less fortunate. "In short," says Sir ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 571 - Volume 20, No. 571—Supplementary Number • Various
... orthodoxy or materialism. This for the general. Students of theology and church history, on the other hand, have had a more difficult task set them in comparing and arranging the materials they have at their disposal, as found in the patristic writings and legendary records; and various theories have been put forward, not the least astonishing being the supposition that Simon was an alias for Paul, and that the Simon and Peter in the accounts of the fathers and in the narrative of the legends ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... and fighting-men, no clansman would bare claymore in his behalf. But the eloquence and the determination of the young prince won over Clanranald and the Macdonalds of {205} Kinloch-Moidart; Charles disembarked and took up his headquarters at Borrodaile farm in Inverness-shire. A kind of legendary fame attaches to the little handful of men who formed his immediate following. [Sidenote: 1745—The Seven Men of Moidart] The Seven Men of Moidart are as familiar in Scottish Jacobite legend as the Seven Champions of Christendom are to childhood. Tullibardine; Sir Thomas Sheridan, the ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... going to pieces along others. The power and extortions of the freedmen were breeding discontent on every hand. Both through what she really did, and what the populace said she had done, Messalina was being transformed by the people into a legendary personage whose infamous deeds aroused general indignation; but ...
— The Women of the Caesars • Guglielmo Ferrero
... book of Danish ballads, left at his coast-line cottage by a crew of shipwrecked Danes. Once possessed of this work, he could not rest satisfied until he had mastered the Danish language in order that he might unearth its historical and legendary treasures. "The Danes, the Danes!" he exclaims to himself, as he holds the priceless volume in his hands. "And was I at last to become acquainted, and in so singular a manner, with the speech of a people which had, as far back as I could remember, exercised the strongest ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... for he next set to work on a play which should be popular in the best sense of the word—William Tell. It is his one play with a happy ending and has always been a prime favorite on the stage. The hero is the Swiss people, and the action idealizes the legendary uprising of the Forest Cantons against their Austrian governors. There are really three separate actions: the conspiracy, the love-affair of Bertha and Rudenz, the exploits of William Tell. All, however, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... recount the most remarkable legends by which the road, and the objects which occurred in travelling it, had been distinguished. There was some originality in the man's habits of thinking and expressing himself, his turn for legendary lore strangely contrasting with a portion of the knowing shrewdness belonging to his actual occupation, which made his conversation amuse ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... remarkable that there must have been, in point of fact, three stages of religious development, and three successive actual theologies in Greece, corresponding very nearly to these three legendary generations of gods. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... us is equivocal: a reader might as reasonably expect the Sports of the Western World, as adventures in Ireland, such as make up the present volumes. What we principally complain of is the paucity of Sports among their contents. It is true that the title also promises Legendary Tales and Local Sketches, but here they are the substance, and the Wild Sports mere shadow. We have too little of "the goodly rivers," "all sorts of fish," "the sweet islands and goodly lakes, like little inland seas," "of the most beautiful and sweet ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 574 - Vol. XX, No. 574. Saturday, November 3, 1832 • Various
... Celsus is now to be found, and what we know of that work is from Origen, his opponent. The venerable fathers, who employed themselves in erasing the best works of the most eminent Greek or Latin authors, in order to transcribe the lives of saints or legendary tales upon the obliterated vellum, possible mistook these lamentable depredations for works of piety. The ancient fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by Mr. Bruns, in the Vatican, in 1772, was much defaced by the pious labours of some well-intentioned divine. The Monks made ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... Sixer woman said she had heard that the Aristarchy was holding back facts; that there were planets clear out to the Periphery, all occupied by Misfits; that the legendary Earth was one ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... legendary heroes: was ever a better or braver company brought together—Perseus, Hercules, Siegfried, Roland, Galahad, Robin Hood, and a dozen others? But stop, I am using too many question-marks. There is no need to query heroes known and admired ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... Mill.—The magic mill is best known in the folk-tale, "Why the sea is salt"; but this is not the oldest part of the story, though it took most hold of the popular imagination which loves legendary explanations of natural phenomena. The hero, Frodi, a mythical Danish king, is the northern Croesus. His reign was marked by a world-peace, and the peace, the wealth, the liberality of Frodi became proverbial. The motive of his tale ...
— The Edda, Vol. 2 - The Heroic Mythology of the North, Popular Studies in Mythology, - Romance, and Folklore, No. 13 • Winifred Faraday
... cathedral church in Europe, certainly no other English one, that has such a clear record of its history as Salisbury. Whereas in almost every other instance we have only vague legendary accounts of the original foundation of the building, in this case there is a trustworthy chronicle of its first inception and each successive stage of ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... back into the legendary lore of savage life, in which we find evidence of the idea in the social institutions and religious enactments of primitive races, it is among the Greeks that the word, if not the idea of conscience, first meets us. Perhaps the earliest trace of the notion is to be found in the mythological conception ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... liked to be remembered, as he best deserved it, he had unconsciously been undergoing a course of preparation even when a boy. He himself has told us with what eagerness he devoured, at that period of life, the legendary histories of Wallace and Bruce; and the occupation had its use. It gave him a capacity for admiring what was great though perilous in exploit, and for truly and largely sympathizing with what was patriotic ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... that Caesar had epileptic fits towards the close of his life is disproof rather than proof of true epilepsy. Of Mahomet, and St. Paul also, epilepsy is alleged. As regards the first, the most competent authorities regard the convulsive seizures attributed to the Prophet as perhaps merely a legendary attempt to increase the awe he inspired by unmistakable evidence of divine authority. The narrative of St. Paul's experience on the road to Damascus is very unsatisfactory evidence on which to base a medical ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... and excellent chances for trout if you have the gift of searching for rivers and lakes in remote districts. The fascinations of the characteristic scenery, the comparatively unspoiled people, and the rich legendary past remain. ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... breathe the very spirit of everything that goes to make Dalmatia delightful. Story, anecdote—ancient or legendary—beautiful cities, old churches, countless architectural and other ancient treasures, etc., etc., pervade ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... the Critic knew, that there is a fair difference between a mere Fiction, or Falshood, and an Instructive Parable or Fable, on one side, or a few more lively Poetical Colours on the other. To mingle Falshoods, or dull Legendary Fictions, without either Life or Soul in 'em, with our Saviour's Blessed Gospel, may make 'em, in some Sence, superiour to it: This wou'd indeed incline an Italian to be of the same Faith with his Countryman, that 'twas all Fabula Christi, in the worst Sence of the Word: But certainly ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... literature of this people, this bulletin proposes to show that an intimate connection exists between their ritual acts, their moral standards, their social organization, even their practical activities of today, and their myths and tales—the still unwritten legendary lore. ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... belief in the "India ship," pretended or real as it may have been with her, but already growing legendary, I know only in ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... now to crouch quietly down, like a pet kitten over-fed with new milk,—any state roguery is passed off as the greatest piece of single-minded honesty upon the mere strength of my character—if I may so say it, upon my legendary reputation. Now, as for you, though you are a lie, you are nevertheless not a bad-looking lie. You have a nice head, clean legs, and—though I think it a little impertinent that you should wear that tuft at the end ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... on St George's day, if we are clever enough to grow one. The Welsh, I dare say, have less difficulty with the leek. But April the 23rd is not a time of roses that we can pluck them as we pass, nor can we claim St George as a compatriot—Cappadocius nostras. We have, to be sure, a few legendary heroes, of whom King Arthur and Robin Hood are (I suppose) the greatest; but, save in some Celtic corners of the land, we have few fairies, and these no great matter; while, as for tutelary gods, our springs, our wells, our groves, cliffs, mountain-sides, either never possessed them or possess ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... of Mr. Reade, "White Lies," although somewhat crude, otherwise ranks with his best. The action is uninterrupted and swift, the characters sharply defined, if legendary, the dialogue always sparkling, the plot cleanly executed, the whole full of humor and seasoned with wit. So well has it caught the spirit of the scene that it reads like a translation, and, lest we should mistake the locale, everybody ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was not occupied during those years with official services. He turned them to better account, prosecuting his researches into the poetry, history, ceremonies, and music of the nation. Many disciples continued to resort to him, and the legendary writers tell us how he employed their services in digesting the results of his studies. I must repeat, however, that several of them, whose names are most famous, such as Tsang Shan, were as yet children, and Min Sun [2] was not born till B.C. 500. To this period we must refer the almost single ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... leisure, still bookless, yet beginning to be bedless, or cribless; tasting of accessible garden peaches in a liberal backward territory that was still almost part of a country town; tasting of many-sized uncles, aunts, cousins, of strange legendary domestics, inveterately but archaically Irish, and whose familiar remarks and "criticism of life" were handed down, as well as of dim family ramifications and local allusions—mystifications always—that flowered into anecdote as into small ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... only legends, but the desire to be impartial, is, I hope, perfectly consistent with a tender regard for the legendary background of history. To subject a legend or tradition to the logical process of reasoning and analysis, is like crushing a butterfly or breaking a scent bottle, and expecting still to keep the beauty of the one and the fragrance of the other. I do not, therefore, push the ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... northern chief, called by the chronicler Chochilaicus (who is generally identified with the Hygelac of the epic), led a huge plundering expedition up the Rhine. After a succession of battles he was overcome by the Franks, but—and now we enter a legendary region once more—not until a gigantic nephew of Hygelac had performed heroic feats of valor, and had saved the remnants of the host by a marvelous feat of swimming. The majority of scholars now hold that these historical ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... crossings of mountains may have been more adroit and more exemplary strategy; none so audacious, so heroic and legendary. Twenty-five hundred men climb the eastern slope of the range, and a smaller number of specters descends the other side; these specters are those of the men who were strong in body and soul, for the weak ones remained in the snow, in the torrents, on the heights where the air is not sufficient ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... old legendary description of his person and habits, that he was never known to smile, I regard as an utter falsehood, for to me it is incredible—almost as a geometrical absurdity. In that glad company the eyes of a divine artist, following the spiritual lines of ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald
... "shekel of the sanctuary," often mentioned in the Priestly Code, and there only, cannot possibly have borne this name until the most natural objects of the old Israelite regime had begun to appear surrounded by a legendary nimbus, because themselves no longer in actual existence. Over against it we have the "king's weight" mentioned in a gloss in 2Samuel xiv. 26, the king being none other than the great king of Babylon. It is an interesting circumstance that the "shekel of the sanctuary ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... rich in legendary lore and replete with historic distinction, had been in the Delamere family for nearly two hundred years. Along the bank of the river which skirted its domain the famous pirate Blackbeard had held high carnival, and was reputed ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... was gone. In the hush I heard my panting breath and the tick of my watch on the stand. It was two o'clock in the morning. As I mechanically read the hour, a cock somewhere shrilled its second call before dawn. The Horror had been true to the legendary ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... might have been developed. It is difficult for us civilised men to conceive the extent to which the thoughts and lives of these savages are dominated by the memories and traditions of the dead. Every conspicuous feature in the landscape is not only associated with the legendary doings of some ancestors but is commonly said to have arisen as a direct result of their actions. The mountains, the plains, the rivers, the seas, the islands of ancient Greece itself were not more thickly haunted by the phantoms of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... darkly down the shaggy glen; The bee-kissed heather blooms around the door; He sees himself a barefoot boy again, Bending o'er page of legendary lore. He hears the pibroch, grips the red claymore, Runs with the Fiery Cross, a clansman true, Sworn kinsman of ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... reproduction of the scenes of imagined adventure. Any reasonable pirate could be quite happy here. For here is the breadfruit tree, read of in many a tale of castaways; also the cocoanut palm, with the fruits hanging among the fronds, waiting for the legendary monkey to scamper up the trunk and hurl the great balls at the heads of the beholders. Here, too, are the mango, and many sorts of bananas, and the cabbage palm, another favorite resource of starving adventurers. With these there are other jungle denizens,—the ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... finished a letter to Alick to go by a steamer to-day. You will see it, so I will go on with the stories about the riots. Here is a thing happening within a few weeks and within sixty miles, and already the events assume a legendary character. Achmet et-Tayib is not dead and where the bullets hit him he shows little marks like burns. The affair began thus: A certain Copt had a Muslim slave-girl who could read the Koran and who served him. He wanted her to be his Hareem and she refused and went to Achmet ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... and he took particular care to state that his essay, though published only in 1788, had been written in 1784. In that essay he endeavored to show that there existed an intimate connection, not only between the mythology of India and that of Greece and Italy, but likewise between the legendary stories of the Brahmans and the accounts of certain historical events as recorded in the Old Testament. No doubt, the temptation was great. No one could look down for a moment into the rich mine of religious and mythological ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... one moved to obey her imperious command. The men stared as if she were an apparition, so sudden and unexpected was her arrival. And in fact, she did seem like a leader of the legendary Valkyries, with her flashing eyes and wind-swept hair, mounted upon that prancing horse as black as night itself. It was little wonder that the men trembled as they watched her, while several crossed themselves as if to ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... the pearl that dazzles us here? The monastery of Antoorskov has vanished, even the last solitary remaining wing, though one old relic still exists—renovated and renovated again—a wooden cross upon the heights above, where, in legendary lore, it is said that HOLY ANDERS, the warrior priest, woke up, borne thither in one ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... the island standing up against the sky and sea was the cap of Point Venus at the northern extremity—the departure must have seemed to some like that of Tannhauser from the enchanted mountain, except that the legendary hero was glad to make his return to the normal world, whereas all of Bligh's company were not. For them, westward, whither ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... variety of the Servian heroic poems is immense. The oldest legendary cycle is formed by their great Tzar Dushan Nemanyitch and his heroes; by the pious prince Lazar, their last independent chief, who was executed by the Turks after having been made prisoner in battle; and by the death ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... marked by narrow terraces or parallel roads, which sweep round the shoulders of the hills with "undeviating horizontality." These roads are described by Sir Archibald Geikie as having long been "a subject of wonderment and legendary story among the Highlanders, and for so many years a source of sore perplexity among men of science." (517/2. "The Scenery of Scotland," 1887, page 266.) In Glen Roy itself there are three distinct shelves or terraces, and the mountain sides of the valley of ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... ultimately prove, which British rule has imported into India during a period of transition more momentous than any other through which she has ever passed, but still very brief when compared with all those other periods of Indian history which modern research has only recently rescued from the legendary obscurity of still ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... legendary history this word is variously accounted for. One derivation is from Albion, a giant, son of Neptune, its first discoverer, who ruled over the ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... faithful troops. They crowded round him, fired with a wild enthusiasm. Then Toscanini took command of what surely was one of the strangest concerts in the world, played in the moonlight, in an hour of glory, on a mountain top, which to the Italians had become an almost legendary name, to an audience of two contending Armies, amid the rattle of machine guns, the rumble of cannon, and the crashes ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... suffer. But she had never thought to find any garden of peace that realised her dreams. Nevertheless, she was already conscious that Smain with his rose was showing her the way to her ideal, that her feet were set upon its pathway, that its legendary trees were closing ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... is doubtless a deal that is legendary about what I am going to tell you. But the ring given to my ancestor Rupert Littimer by Prince Rupert ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... theological thought among English-speaking people, when, in the collection of essays entitled Lux Mundi, emanating from the college established in these latter days as a fortress of orthodoxy at Oxford, the legendary character of the creation accounts in our sacred books was acknowledged, and when the Archbishop of Canterbury asked, "May not the Holy Spirit at times have made use ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... like to know how high this strange legend can be traced. The other tradition that St. Paul was subject to epileptic fits, has a less legendary character. The phrase 'thorn in the flesh' is scarcely reconcilable with Luther's hypothesis, otherwise than as doubts of the objectivity of his vision, and of his after revelations may have been consequences of the disease, whatever that ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... that he had found the path to excellence, suggested another essay of the ottava rima, a humorous poem "a la Beppo" on a larger and more important scale. If Byron possessed more than a superficial knowledge of the legendary "Don Juan," he was irresponsive and unimpressed. He speaks (letter to Murray, February 16, 1821) of "the Spanish tradition;" but there is nothing to show that he had read or heard of Tirso de Molina's (Gabriel Tellez) El Burlador de Sevilla y Convidado de Piedra (The Deceiver ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... ceremony had need to be infallible, for if he predicts contrary to the event it is said that he is sometimes punished with death for his want of skill. Exclusively however of these books of necromancy there are others containing legendary and mythological tales, of which latter a sample will be given ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... (Seven Kingdoms). The resistance of the Britons to the Anglo-Saxon advance was often brave and sometimes temporarily successful. Early in the sixth century, for example, they won at Mount Badon in the south a great victory, later connected in tradition with the legendary name of King Arthur, which for many years gave them security from further aggressions. But in the long run their racial defects proved fatal; they were unable to combine in permanent and steady union, and tribe by tribe the newcomers drove ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... of June, the hostile forces confronted each other at the Boyne. The gentle, legendary river, wreathed in all the glory of its abundant foliage, was startled with the cannonade from the northern bank, which continued through the long summer's evening, and woke the early echoes of the morrow. William, ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Fastrada. Leo the Third consecrated it in 804, and tradition says that two bishops of Tongres, who were buried at Maestricht, arose from their graves, in order to complete, at that ceremony, 365 bishops and archbishops—representing the days of the year. This historical and legendary church, from which the town has taken its name, has undergone, during the last thousand years, many transformations. No sooner had I entered Aix than I went to the chapel.... The effect of the great "portail" is not striking; the facade displays the different styles of architecture—Roman, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... their vast experience of the human heart hourly exposed to their probe, Bartolomeo spoke less of danger to herself than to her child. "Sorcerers," said he, "have ever sought the most to decoy and seduce the souls of the young,—nay, the infant;" and therewith he entered into a long catalogue of legendary fables, which he quoted as historical facts. All at which an English woman would have smiled, appalled the tender but superstitious Neapolitan; and when the priest left her, with solemn rebukes and ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... beer. Once our people liked uniform simplicity; but now they are become like a man who was born blind, and has suddenly acquired sight. A change indeed! For thirty-three years did Ilya of Murom [Ilya Murometz, the legendary figure most frequently met with In Russian bilini (folk songs), and probably identical with Elijah the Prophet, though credited with many of the attributes proper, rather, to the pagan god Perun the Thunderer.] sit waiting for his end before ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky
... may quote from Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art (ed. 1857, p. 159): "He (St. John) bears in his hand the sacramental cup, from which a serpent is seen to issue. St. Isidore relates that at Rome an attempt was made to poison St. John in the cup of the sacrament; he drank of the same, and administered it to the communicants ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... author relates the stirring tale of the Scottish War of Independence. The extraordinary valour and personal prowess of Wallace and Bruce rival the deeds of the mythical heroes of chivalry, and indeed at one time Wallace was ranked with these legendary personages. The researches of modern historians have shown, however, that he was a living, breathing man—and a valiant champion. The hero of the tale fought under both Wallace and Bruce, and while ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the men with the luxuriant hair was none the less anarchical when the roast appeared, which sprung from the legendary animal called 'vache enragee'. The possessor of the longest and thickest of all the shock heads, which spread over the shoulders of a young story writer—between us, be it said, he made a mistake in not combing ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... of those I have. They're a horrible inconvenience. But I can't get it out of my head that the air is filled with a swarm of malignant little devils, who are always watching their chance to do us an ill turn. We don't in the least know the conditions under which they can bring it off; but it's legendary that if we wear opals, or sit thirteen at table, or start an enterprise on Friday, or what not, we somehow give them their opportunity. And one naturally wishes to ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... The dogcow is a semi-legendary creature that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh Technical Notes Hypercard stack V3.1. The full story of the dogcow is told in technical note 31 (the particular dogcow illustrated is properly named 'Clarus'). Option-shift-click will cause it to emit ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... classic and sinewy and versatile? I have seen it on Greek vases, and among the sailors of the Cyclades and on the Bosphorus. It is a non-Latin face, with sparkling eyes, brown hair, rounded forehead and crisply curling beard; a legendary face. How came ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... contribution to our early national literature, as well as to legendary history, has lately been published by Dr. Nicolaus Delius of Bonn. He has edited in a small octavo volume, published at a very moderate price, Maistre Wace's St. Nicholas, an old French poem, by the poetical Canon ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 42, Saturday, August 17, 1850 • Various
... the Babylonians and Assyrians identified the hero with a legendary king, Gilgamos, who is mentioned by Aelian.[847] To be sure, what Aelian tells of this hero is not found in the Izdubar epic, and appears to have originally been recounted of another legendary ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... native scholars and collectors, they have not as yet been presented in a popular manner to English-speaking readers. The probable reasons for what would appear to be an otherwise incomprehensible omission on the part of those British writers who make a popular use of legendary material are that many Breton folk-tales strikingly resemble those of other countries, that from a variety of considerations some of them are unsuitable for presentation in an English dress, and that most of the folk-tales proper certainly ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence |
