Today is part one of two where we are talking to Sheryl Bass about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about writing as a kid, using rhyme to help tell your story, setting your story aside while making plans, using your family as a focus group for your illustrations, promoting your books at children’s conferences, taking classes to learn how to promote your books, using your background in PR to help you promote your book, writing stories based on your pets, and her advice to take your time.

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Sheryl Bass holds a master’s degree in Social Work and has studied child development. She uses these insights to inform her picture book writing. Sheryl also holds a master’s degree in Journalism and is currently working in public relations. Her goal in creating Be-Kind Publishing is to produce lighthearted rhyming stories with gentle themes of teamwork and friendship. Sheryl resides just outside of Chicago, IL with her husband and two terriers.

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Welcome to Freya's Fairy Tales where you believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author's version as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I'm also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the Show Notes.

Be sure to check out our website.

And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part one of two where we are talking to Cheryl Bass about her novels.

Over the next two weeks you will hear about writing as a kid using rhyme to help tell your story, setting your story aside while making plans using your family as a focus group for your illustrations promoting your books at children's conferences taking classes to learn how to promote your books using your background in PR to help you promote your book writing stories based on your pets and her advice to take your time baby Dragon's Big Sneeze A sick baby dragon feels terrible when his fiery sneeze causes problems for a neighboring village.

Can they forgive and find it in their hearts to help the giant young dragon follow one brave little girl who enters his cave and confronts the dragon.

After learning about his plight, she advocates for him with the town's people.

It will take problem solving at its best to prevent further destruction and heal the ailing dragon.

So the podcast is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is Fairy tales in two ways.

Fairy tales are something that we watched or listened to or read as kids.

And also the journey for you to.

Spend weeks, months, years working on your book to hold it in your hands is a fairy tale for you.

So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale when you were a kid and did your favorite change as you got older?

Well, I grew up on Free to be you and me.

I don't know if that's before your time, but Free to Be You and Me had Marlowe Thomas and some other famous people at the time, alan Alda and all those people.

And it was a bunch of stories, but also songs and so on.

It was an album, and one of the stories was about a girl named Adalanta.

The king was her father.

She was a princess, and she was told that she could choose whoever she wanted to marry based on whoever won a race.

I think that was it.

Whoever won the race was going to be her husband or something of that nature.

Anyway, she wins the race and she chooses to not marry anyone.

Instead of being married and living happily ever after, she chooses to be on her own and she chooses to be friends with the second runner up and they travel the world together and don't get married.

And I thought that was a really cool modern fairy tale.

So it was sort of an answer to the happily ever after they get married kind of thing.

It was more of in the feminist genre.

So that was a great story growing up.

Another one when I was a little older than that, that I loved was Charlotte's Web.

Okay, so that was a great story for me as a kid.

And that one is also less happily ever after.

It does not end happy.

Right.

For the Spider, at least, right?

I know, but for Wilbur and the babies, it ends well.

So at what age did you start writing your book?

Or any books, any stories at all?

I've written stories since I was pretty little, and I used to always write rhymes a lot of times.

Well, my sister and I both sing, and so one of the things that we would often do growing up is we would take a song and change the lyrics, a famous song, and then we would make it about my parents or people, whoever's birthday it was or anniversary or whatever.

And it often rhymed.

I would send people cars that rhymed and things like that, and I would write short stories, personal essays, things like that, since I was a child.

Okay, this is the first one I've published.

Okay.

Are there others that you didn't end up publishing?

Yes, there's actually several that are kind of in the hopper that I may publish down the line.

And there's also a short personal essay that had been published in two books, and both of those are available on Amazon.

One of them is called lost Souls Found.

Inspiring stories about Chihuahuas.

And the other one is Second Chance Dogs.

True stories of the dogs we rescue and the dogs who rescue us.

And in both of those sort of anthologies are a true story about a dog of mine named Lyric who starred in the Boulder Dinner Theaters production of wizard of Oz.

And so it was my experience as a stage mom for my little Terrier mix.

So how do you get from Chihuahua?

True stories to dragons with colds.

Well, I like to do all types of genres.

So this story actually came about because about 13 years ago, I was just walking along and I sneezed really hard and I had the ridiculous thought that it's a good thing I'm not a dragon, because that could have done a lot of damage.

Most books start what would happen if right?

Yeah.

So I went ahead and started writing it, I put it away.

I didn't do anything with it for many, many years, then tried to get it traditionally published and ran into several different problems with that.

One of them is that certain things go in and out of fashion in publishing, and I love using rhyme.

There's evidence I have a master's in social work and subsequent experience with how children learn and so on.

And there's evidence that rhyme is really effective for reluctant readers.

It helps with vocabulary acquisition, so it helps kids anticipate where the next word is going to be.

It helps with a sense of rhythm.

So I love using rhyme, but several of the traditional publishing houses emailed me back, and they said, we don't really like rhyme.

And a lot of the problem I was running into also was that children's picture book writing is particularly, what would I say, competitive right now.

Let's say a publishing house has room for maybe ten picture book titles in a year.

Okay?

And then you've got people like Jimmy Fallon and Reese Witherspoon and others who have all written children's picture books.

It seems to be the new thing that famous people do.

They used to just kind of get a fragrance, and now they're all writing picture books.

So because they have a name, a famous name, it's easier for publishing companies would rather take a risk on them because it's not really a risk than on someone who's unknown like you or me.

So I self published, and self publishing, I feel, has really leveled the playing field and allowed people like myself to be able to get out there and get their voices heard.

So you said you wrote this book, and then you kind of set it aside.

How long did it take you to do the actual writing of it, and then how long did you leave it alone for?

The initial draft only took me, like, a couple of hours, and then I put it aside for many years.

And then maybe five years ago, I tried traditionally publishing it and then put it aside again, like in little fits and starts.

And I'd hear of a new publishing company, or I'd hear of a literary agent, and then I'd send it.

You weren't just sitting on your hands, you were actively doing things.

Yes.

So that's how that went.

And then I am a member of Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and also a member of Children's Book Insider and both of those groups, if you become a member, they have videos and resources that you can access for free as a member.

So I was at one of their websites, and I was looking through and watching a video, and one of the videos was a woman named April Cox, and she has a company called Self Publishing Made Simple.

And she actually it's not like a hybrid publishing house or anything like that.

She actually will get on a Zoom Call with you and walk you through all of the processes you need in order to get a book published.

So the ISBN codes, which are like the UPC symbols on the back of the book, she helps with how to file with the Library Congress to get it copyrighted, all of those types of steps she'll do with you while you're on a Zoom Call, and then you retain the rights to everything.

And she has vendors she works with, like illustrators, editors and so on.

And so I worked with those people, and after I had my initial meeting with her, it was maybe six months before the book was published.

So it all went pretty fast.

So at the point that you had it set aside and you're sending it to publishers, it wasn't illustrated at that point, right?

No, correct.

I'm not a writer illustrator, and everything I'd read said that.

If you're not a writer illustrator yeah, don't try.

Just send the text.

And if they like your story, they will find an illustrator, which is another reason I prefer the self publishing, because.

You get to pick.

Exactly.

And I was able to tell my illustrator he's in another country, but I was able to go back and forth through email and say, I want more snot coming out of the dragon's nose, because Baby Dragon's Big Sneeze is the name of the story.

I want him to be the size of a two story building.

I want him to be this color.

I want the people to be wearing this sort of clothes.

And we just kept going back and forth like that, and I was able to have a lot of creative control, whereas I would have absolutely none in that realm.

They would have picked the illustrator, and I would have just had to suck.

It up and deal with it.

Pretty much exactly.

So how long did it take once you started the Zoom Call and all of that?

How long did it take to actually get the illustrations done?

That part was maybe three or four months.

Three months?

Probably three months.

But I'm much more particular, I think I had friends and family members that I was using as a focus group.

And I have a nephew who was really very persnickety, and I really wanted him to look it over.

And I said, Count the toes on the dragon, count the spikes on his back.

Make sure everybody's wearing the same color pants as they were in a previous page and the next page and that little things like that to make sure that everything is exactly consistent.

There are no inconsistencies from one page to the next.

And so we kept going back and forth over those things until it was just so until I was absolutely I couldn't find anything else to complain about.

And I felt it was perfect.

And so then we were ready to go.

I deal with that in the narrator space.

Every author, as you're writing your book, you have a voice in your head that you're like picturing.

Like, the main character is going to talk like this, and the male main character is going to talk like that.

And I want whatever side character to have this other voice or whatever.

There's these voices in your heads.

So while I can audition for however many books I want to audition for in a day, if I'm not the voice in their head, if I have my voice and they were picturing a higher pitched voice or a lower pitched voice or someone who talks slower than I do.

Or faster than I do.

God forbid any narrator talk faster than I do.

But it's the same for picking an illustrator.

You need that person that's going to bring what's in your head to life, right?

And then ideally let you ask for edits and all of that.

Right?

One of the things that they encouraged me to do was find pictures on the Internet.

So, for example, I wanted the people wearing sort of Norse or Viking type clothing or nondescript medieval Renaissance type garb.

And so I would find pictures of actual people doing those LARPing and things like that in those types of outfits, and I would send them to the illustrator and say, this is what I want the people to be wearing.

The neat thing was that April Cox has about twelve illustrators that she works with.

That all.

Do they let the author retain the rights to their illustrations once the illustrations are complete?

That is called work for hire.

And they work in that way, and they're also very responsive and so on.

And so she sent me all of their web addresses, and I looked at all of their styles, and I was able to narrow it down to my top four that I like the best.

And then she said, okay, have those four illustrators pick a scene from your story and have them all sketch just in black and white, the same scene, and pay them each $50, and just have them each draw the same scene and see who you like.

And then I was able to narrow it down to my top two illustrators based on their sketches.

And then I was able to use my friends and family as a focus group, particularly those with kids.

And I said, okay, which dragon do you like better and why?

Which little girl do you like better?

That type of thing.

Well, I imagine your background in child psychology and all that would have helped with that too.

I would probably not have asked those kind of questions.

But you were used to those kind of questions.

Why do you say that?

I have an eight year old, and so there's one thing that I know because I worked in daycares and stuff before, like a long time ago, and if a parent comes in and they're like, oh, my gosh, she's so sick.

She's doing this and that and that and that.

And I'm like, no, she's not acting.

Like that at all.

So with our daughter, we're always like, okay, you hurt, but what does it feel like?

Is it a twisting pain?

Is it a sharp pain?

Don't lead them there.

Describe it for me so that I can narrow down.

Do we need to go to the emergency room or do you need to drink some water?

Right.

It sounds like you kind of did that with your focus group of people.

Tell me why you like what you like.

Did you kind of use them as your arc readers, beta readers, that kind of thing?

I mean, with picture books, it's different than I usually talk to people that write adult books.

It's a little bit of a different pattern of things that you have to do.

Yeah, but I definitely did use people of all ages as my focus group.

And then I had two editors.

I had one editor that mostly did the developmental editing with me.

And then after that, she found holes in my story.

So, for example, the dragon is it's about a dragon who accidentally burns down a village with his sneeze, baby dragons, big sneeze.

And the villages are all very mad at him, and they want to attack him until this one little girl decides to go to his cave and figure out why he's doing this.

Why would he suddenly, after coexisting with them just fine, why would he suddenly want to make their homes burn?

Right?

So it's her curiosity, wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt, let him get his side of the story out.

And then he tells her that he didn't mean to, it was a cold, and she advocates for him with the town.

But before that, this editor said, well, where are his parents?

Why can't his parents just help him?

Why does he need the town to help him?

And that was a hole in my story.

So during the developmental edit, she was able to point that out, and so I added some lines in there about how he hatched all alone in this den and then sneezed, but he tried not to do it again.

So that kind of thing to answer.

We all know what happens when you try to hold back a sneeze, right?

So you said it took about three months to get your illustrations ready, and then what did you do once the book was ready to go?

Did you hire someone to help format it for you or kind of.

What did you do next?

So April had this checklist that she had me do after it was all illustrated.

So then she had several steps to do in terms of getting, like, the ISBN numbers and then the COVID design and all of those other things in a particular order.

So she had a particular order for that, that you're supposed to do all of those things.

And she walked me through all of that, and I don't even remember every single step.

That's why I'm going to use her again, because there's a sequel that's going to be coming out actually by Christmas, and so I'm going to use her for that as well.

Her help with all those steps.

I imagine it had to be formatted somewhere in there.

Yes, but it's print on demand and they do.

So there's somebody that she works with that does that.

So you get the illustrations, and then you have the text in a certain font or whatever, and somebody does that.

And then you have somebody who does the COVID design.

Your cover is super cute.

I showed it to my eight year old and she was like, oh my gosh, thank you.

Yeah, that's when the little girl is meeting the dragon in the cave.

But yeah, there's definitely a lot of steps involved, but it's good to have somebody to walk you through it.

I mean, when I first thought about self publishing, I really thought I would be alone in a room with a big, thick book called Self Publishing for Dummies or similar, and I'd really be on my own.

But it's a misnomer.

There's a lot of people out there that can help.

There's Facebook groups you can go onto with others that are self publishing and watch podcasts, listen to podcasts, get advice from other people who have done it, who can kind of walk you through that journey.

So your book is about to release, right?

No, it's already been released.

It was published October 2022.

October 19 was when it published.

And it's available on Amazon and on Barnesandnoble.com, Walmart.com Target, all the places.

Yes.

So what are you kind of obviously you're coming on podcasts because you actually found me through one of my other podcasts.

Okay, so what are you kind of beyond asking for people to talk to you on podcasts, what else are you doing to kind of get the word out there about your book?

Well, a couple of months ago, I had a booth at a national kindergarten and preschool education conference.

So I and a bunch of other vendors had booths, and so I sold several of my books there.

I'm also going to sell them at local art festivals and things like that and have a booth.

I will also go to local elementary schools and do readings.

I did do a reading at a Barnes and Noble that went very well.

And I'm getting myself, because I do PR for a living, public relations, I'm garnering myself podcasts and other types of interviews.

What do I do for other people now?

Let's do that for me myself.

Exactly.

So that's what I've been doing.

Yeah, I did notice that in your email signature.

I was like, she already knows.

Well, I would hope.

I mean, I do realize that there are people out there that don't actually know how to do their job.

But I was like, she's definitely putting her day job skills to the use to use here.

Yeah, but there's also a learning curve.

I'm learning how to do Amazon ads.

I'm taking an Amazon ads course with somebody who offers that.

But I have my little village in place to help me with those things for this book.

And then they're also going to help me for the sequel now.

And I've had one other children's author on here.

It's kind of a different world for children's books because you're not advertising for the people consuming the books, you're advertising for their parents and their grandparents.

And not that grown ups can't read kid books, because they definitely can.

But for the most part, it's a little bit of a different ballgame when you're talking about ads because you're gearing it towards the grown up buying it for the little one.

So is that something that the ads course you're taking?

Are they set up to kind of help you with that aspect of it?

Or is it just a general ads course?

It's a general ads course.

But she does talk about the differences with children's book publishing because there's several people in the class who are also children's book authors.

So, for example, one of the trends that works very well with ads on Amazon for other types of authors, but does not work as well for children's authors is there are ad types you can do based on other authors.

So with an adult book, say you like Jody Picult.

There's other authors out there.

If you like Jody Picult, you'll probably like so and so.

And they even do that with their algorithm.

And Barnes and Noble and all of them do that too.

They'll pop up, these others.

If you like this one, you'll like that one, right?

But when you do that for children's books, it's not really as much like that.

So, for example, if somebody likes Harry Potter, if someone's going on to Amazon for a Harry Potter book, they want a Harry Potter book.

They're not necessarily going to go for something that says, oh, we're like Harry Potter, or if you like Louis Carroll, oh, we're like through the Looking Glass or whatever.

Usually they want what a person wants what they want.

So you can say genre, you can say fantasy or Arthurian historical fiction, that kind of thing.

And people will buy based on the genre, but not as much based on another author as it is with older books for older people.

Yeah, I don't know that I now I see like, when I'm reading on my Kindle, it'll have when you finish a book, it'll say here's others like this.

I don't know when I'm shopping, I mean, I like search for books.

And for my daughter for Christmas every year, we always buy her some book series.

And for her.

I go through just her age range.

I just want books in this.

And I always sort by the stars because if something's got really low stars, she's probably not going to like that either because no one else did.

Of course I'm the grown up looking.

I understand when like a kid, like when she wants to eat a grilled cheese for lunch, she has to have a grilled cheese for lunch.

So what kind of age range is your you said is it in the Arthurian in the genre that you just mentioned?

Yes.

Or medieval renaissance.

It's not clearly defined, but they're wearing sort of old timey generic garb that could be medieval, could be Renaissance, could be Norse Viking type garb.

And so I put it in a few of those categories.

Kids who like dragons, of course, would like it.

Kids who like mythical beings would like it.

And then it's ages three to seven or eight.

So at the younger ages, of course, the parents are reading it to the child reading, and then when the child is older, they can read it to.

Themselves, which is why at the beginning of every episode, I'm like, watch the fairy tale, read the fairy tale or have it listen to it.

Because I don't know if you watch the movies of the fairy tales, your parents read it to you or you read them to yourself.

But when you're a kid, one of those things is going to happen for majority of people.

So you are going through this ads course.

You've been doing all these events and all of this for your book.

What are kind of like some upcoming things that you also have that you're doing for the promotion of the book?

Well, I'm waiting to hear back, actually.

I've applied for several different awards, and you find out at different times of the year.

Some are April, some are May, 1 is in September.

So applying for awards is another good thing that people can do to get their name out there if they're a new author.

I'm definitely trying to get school visits, but the school year is ending soon, so in the next month or two.

And then also trying to get into libraries to do like a story time.

Don't most do like, a summer reading time thing?

I don't know.

This would be my first summer as an author.

At least I know libraries around me do like a summer reading time thing.

It'll be like, say, every Tuesday during the summer, they'll do like a children's event thing.

Great.

Yeah.

So I'll try and get those, and I'll also try and get now that it's getting warmer, the outdoor art festivals and things like that are real popular around me.

I live in the greater Chicago land area.

So the summertime is when people start having fairs and things like that with tents and things like that, that people walk past different booths.

I imagine if you did, like, some medieval festival things, that would maybe do a little bit well, too.

I should contact the Renaissance Festival, see what they think.

I mean, maybe it feels like it would be a good fit.

Yeah, that could work.

I should contact them, right?

Okay.

So you're just kind of trying yeah.

I mean, it's really a different ballgame because most of the time when I talk to authors, they're like, oh, I advertise on TikTok and in Facebook groups, and I hear the same thing pretty much every time.

But it's like children's books is just such a different ballgame.

I'm kind of fascinated by the differences in the process.

So you said you kind of tried to get in with a big publisher for the first one.

Did you even try to go that route?

For the second?

No, I'm sorry.

For the second one?

No, not at all.

Because I want to use the same illustrator and all of my same vendors through April Cox and her business.

And she was offering actually, toward the end of last year, she had some kind of a Black Friday sale where it was 40% off for your next book if you've already used her services and all of her vendors.

So I just said, okay, it's settled, and I'm going to use all the same people.

And I wanted the continuity, since it is I definitely wanted it to look the book, to have the same kind of look and feel at the other children's author.

I talked to her illustrator.

She wasn't able to have the same one for her book, so she had to like then it was in hers.

She ended up writing in reasons why the world changed, so that it made sense, why illustrations changed, why the world was suddenly different, and all of this.

My only experience so far is the podcast that you found me through.

My husband originally hand drew the logo for me, which kind of similar to yours.

I had an image in my head of what I wanted it to look like.

And so I am a terrible artist.

Terrible.

But I drew for him.

This is what's in my head.

And then he made it look much better.

But then we actually went through or I went through fiver to find someone to professionalize it because it was like the hand drawn looking logo.

So went through fiver to find someone.

But similar to what you did, I looked through all the people that make podcast cover arts to find one in the style that I wanted, because there's a lot that do, apparently, like, comic book looking is the thing right now.

There was a lot that do, like, boom, POW, like, all this kind of stuff.

And I'm like, not quite what I want.

But I did find someone, and I had to do a couple of back and forth like you did.

Well, it's pulled back right now.

So you.

Can't see it, but I have like wavy, big hair, and he drew her with this straight, really small hair.

And I'm like, sir, that's not going to work.

I had this into a picture of me so he could see how big my hair, but without having I didn't think that I would need to explain that up front.

Cheryl liked the story of Atalanta as told on Free to be you and Me.

The story from Free to Be You and Me was a retelling of the Greek myth of Adalanta.

Adalanta, equal in weight, is a heroine in Greek mythology.

There are two versions of the huntress Atalanta one from Arcadia, whose parents were Yeasas and Clemente, and who is primarily known from the tales of the Caldonian boar hunt and the Argonauts, and the other from Boatia, who is the daughter of King Shonius and is primarily noted for her skill in the foot race.

In both versions, Atlanta was a local figure allied to the goddess Artemis.

In such oral traditions, minor characters were often assigned different names, resulting in minor regional variations.

Today we'll be reading the story of Atalanta from the Greek myths.

Don't forget we're reading Lemourt de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the roundtable on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Story of Atalanta one the Bear on the Mountain in a sunny land in Greece called Arcadia, there lived a king and a queen who had no children.

They wanted very much to have a son who might live to rule over Arcadia when the king was dead.

And so, as the years went by, they prayed to great Jupiter on the mountaintop that he would send them a son.

After a while, a child was born to them.

But it was a little girl.

The father was in a great rage with Jupiter and everybody else.

What is a girl good for?

He said.

She can never do anything but sing and spin and spend money.

If a child had been a boy, he might have learned to do many things to ride and to hunt and defied in the wars.

And by and by, he would have been king of Arcadia.

But this girl can never be a king.

Then he called to one of his men and bade him take the babe out to a mountain where there was nothing but rocks and thick woods, and leave it there to be eaten up by the wild bears that lived in the caves and thickets.

It would be the easiest way, he said, to get rid of the useless little creature.

The man carried the child far up the mountainside and laid it down on a bed of moss in the shadow of a great rock.

The child stretched out its baby hands towards him and smiled.

But he turned away and left it there, for he did not dare to disobey the king, for a whole night.

And a whole day.

The babe lay on its bed of moss waiting for its mother, but only the birds among the trees heard its pitiful cries at last.

It grew so weak for want of food that it could only moan and move its head a little from side to side.

It would have died before another day if nobody had cared for it.

Just before dark on the second evening, a she bear came strolling down the mountainside from her den.

She was out looking for her cubs, for some hunters had stolen them.

That very day, while she was away from home, she heard the moans of the little babe and wondered if it was not one of her lost cubs.

And when she saw it lying so helpless on the moss, she went to it and looked at it kindly.

Was it possible that a little bear could be changed into a pretty babe with fat white hands and with a beautiful gold chain around its neck?

The old bear did not know, and as the child looked at her with its bright black eyes, she growled softly and licked its face with her warm tongue and then lay down beside it just as she would have done with her own little cubs.

The babe was too young to feel afraid, and it cuddled close to the old bear and felt that it had found a friend.

After a while it fell asleep, but the bear guarded it until morning and then went down the mountainside to look for food.

In the evening, before dark, the bear came again and carried the child to her own den under the shelter of a rock where vines and wildflowers grew.

And every day after that she came and gave the child food and played with it.

And all the bears on the mountain learned about the wonderful cub that had been found and came to see it.

But not one of them offered to harm it.

And the little girl grew fast and became strong, and after a while could walk and run among the trees and rocks and brambles on the round top of the mountain.

But her bear mother would not allow her to wander far from the den beneath the rock where the vines and the wildflowers grew.

One day some hunters came up the mountain to look for game, and one of them pulled aside the vines which grew in front of the old bear's home.

He was surprised to see the beautiful child lying on the grass and playing with the flowers which she had gathered.

But at the sight of him, she leapt to her feet and bounded away like a frightened deer.

She led the hunters a fine chase among the trees and rocks, but there were a dozen of them, and it was not long until they caught her.

The hunters had never taken such game as that before, and they were so well satisfied that they did not care to hunt anymore.

That day the child struggled and fought as hard as she knew how, but it was of no use.

The hunters carried her down the mountain and took her to the house where they lived on the other side of the forest.

At first she cried all the time, for she sadly missed the bear that had been a mother to her so long.

But the hunters made a great pet of her and gave her many pretty things to play with and were very kind.

And it was not long until she began to like her new home.

The hunters named her Atalanta, and when she grew older, they made her a bow and arrows and taught her how to shoot.

And they gave her a light spear and showed her how to carry it and how to hurl it at the game or at an enemy.

Then they took her with them when they went hunting, and there was nothing in the world that pleased her so much as roaming through the woods and running after the deer and other wild animals.

Her feet became very swift so that she could run faster than any of the men.

And her arms were so strong and her eyes so sharp and true that with her arrow or her spear she never missed the mark.

And she grew up to be very tall and graceful and was known throughout all Arcadia as the Fleet Footed Huntress Two, the Brand on the hearth.

Now, not very far from the land of Arcadia, there was a little city named Calidun.

It lay in the midst of rich wheat fields and fruitful vineyards.

But beyond the vineyards there was a deep, dense forest where many wild beasts lived.

The king of Calidun was named enius, and he dwelt in a white palace with his wife, Althea, and his boys and girls.

His kingdom was so small that it was not much trouble to govern it, and so he spent the most of his time in hunting or in ploughing or in looking after his grapevines.

He was said to be a very brave man, and he was the friend of all the great heroes of that heroic time.

The two daughters of enius and Althea were famed all over the world for their beauty, and one of them was the wife of the hero Hercules, who had freed Prometheus from his chains and done many other mighty deeds.

The six sons of enius and Althea were noble, handsome fellows, but the noblest and handsomest of them all was Maligar, the youngest.

When Maliga was a tiny babe, only seven days old, a strange thing happened in the white palace of the king.

Queen Althea awoke in the middle of the night and saw a fire blazing on the hearth.

She wondered what it could mean, and she lay quite still by the side of the babe and looked and listened.

Three strange women were standing by the hearth.

They were tall, and two of them were beautiful, and the faces of all were stern.

Ossea knew at once that they were the Fates who give gifts of some kind to every child that is born, and who say whether his life shall be a happy one or full of sadness and sorrow.

What shall we give to this child?

Said the oldest and sternest of the three strangers.

Her name was a tropos, and she held a pair of sharp shears in her hand.

I give him a brave heart, said the youngest and fairest.

Her name was Clotho, and she held a distaff full of flax from which she was spinning a golden thread.

And I give him a gentle, noble mind, said the dark haired one, whose name was Locusis.

She gently drew out the thread which Clotho spun, and turning the stern Atropost, said, lay aside those shears, sister, and give the child your gift.

I give him life until this bran shall be burned to ashes, was the answer.

And the Atropost took a small stick of wood and laid it on the burning coals.

The three sisters waited till the stick was ablaze, and then they were gone.

Althea spring up quickly.

She saw nothing but the fire on the hearth and the stick burning slowly away.

She made haste to pour water upon the blaze, and when every spark was put out, she took the charred stick and put it into a strong chest, where she kept her treasures and locked it up.

I know that the child's life is safe, she said, so long as that stick is kept unburned.

And so, as the years went by, maliga grew up to be a brave young man, so gentle and noble that his name became known in every land of Greece.

He did many daring deeds, and with other heroes went on a famous voyage across the seas in search of a marvelous fleece of gold.

And when he returned to Caledon, the people declared that he was the worthiest of the sons of enius to become their king.

Three the gifts on the altars.

Now it happened one summer that the vineyards of Caledon were fuller of grapes than they had ever been before, and there was so much wheat in the fields that the people did not know what to do with it.

I will tell you what to do, said King enius.

We will have a Thanksgiving Day, and we will give some of the grain and some of the fruit to the mighty beings who sit among the clouds on the mountaintop.

For it is from them that the sunshine and the fair weather and the moist winds and the warm rains have come.

And without their aid, we could never have had so fine a harvest.

The very next day, the king and the people of Kellyden went out into the fields and vineyards to offer up their thank offerings.

Here and there they built little altars on turf and stones and laid dry grass and twigs upon them.

And then on top of the twigs they put some of the largest bunches of grapes and some of the finest heads of wheat, which they thought would please the mighty beings who had sent them so great plenty.

There was one altar for Ceres, who had shown men how to sow grain, and one for Bacchus, who had told them about the grape.

And one for wing footed Mercury, who comes in the clouds.

And one for Athena, the queen of the air.

And one for the keeper of the winds.

And one for the giver of light.

And one for the driver of the golden sun car.

And one for the king of the sea.

And one which was the largest of all.

For Jupiter, the mighty thunderer who sits upon the mountaintop and rules the world.

And when everything was ready, King enius gave the word, and the fire was touched to the grass, and the twigs upon the altars and the grapes and the wheat that had been laid there were burned up.

Then the people shouted and danced, for they fancied that in that way the thank offerings were sent right up to Ceres and Bacchus and Mercury and Athena and all the rest.

And in the evening they went home with glad hearts, feeling that they had done right.

But they had forgotten one of the mighty beings.

They had not raised any altar to Diana, the fair huntress and queen of the woods, and they had not offered her a single grape or a single grain of wheat.

They had not intended to slight her, but to tell the truth, there were so many others that they had never once thought about her.

I do not suppose that Diana cared anything at all for the fruit or the grain, but it made her very angry to think that she should be forgotten.

I'll show them that I am not to be slighted in this way, she said.

All went well, however, until the next summer, and the people of Caledon were.

Very happy, for it looked as though.

There would be a bigger harvest than ever.

I tell you, said old King enius, looking over his fields and his vineyards, it pays to give thanks.

We'll have another Thanksgiving as soon as the grapes begin to ripen.

But even then he did not think of Diana.

The very next day, the largest and fiercest wild boar that anybody had ever seen came rushing out of the forest.

He had two long tusks which stuck far out of his mouth on either side and were as sharp as knives, and the stiff bristles on his back were as large and as long as knitting needles.

As he went tearing along towards Callidan, champing his teeth and foaming at the mouth, he was a frightful thing to look at, I tell you.

Everybody fled before him.

He rushed into the wheat fields and tore up all the grain.

He went into the vineyards and broke down all the vines.

He rooted up all the trees and the orchards, and when there was nothing else to do, he went into the pasture lands among the hills and killed the sheep that were feeding there.

He was so fierce and so fleet afoot that the bravest warrior hardly dared to attack him.

His thick skin was proof against arrows and against such spears as the people of Kellyden had.

And I do not know how many men he killed with those terrible razor tusks of his.

For weeks he had pretty much his own way, and the only safe place for anybody was inside of the walls.

When he had laid waste the whole country, he went back into the edge of the forest.

But the people were so much afraid of him that they lived in dread every day lest he should come again and tear down the gates of the city.

We must have forgotten somebody when we gave thanks last year, said King enius.

Who could it have been?

And then he thought of Diana.

Diana, the queen of the chase, said he has sent this monster to punish us for forgetting her.

I'm sure that we shall remember her now as long as we live.

Then he sent messengers into all the countries near Caledon, asking the bravest men and the skillfulest hunters to come at a certain time and help him hunt and kill the great wild boar.

Very many of these men had been with Maliga in that wonderful voyage in search of the Golden Fleece, and he felt sure they would come.

Four the Hunt in the Forest when the day came which enius had set, there was a wonderful gathering of men at Callidon.

The greatest heroes in the world were there, and everyone was fully armed and expected to have fine sport hunting the terrible wild boar.

With the warriors from the south, there came a tall maiden armed with bow and arrows and a long hunting spear.

It was our friend Atalanta the huntress.

My daughters are having a game of ball in the garden, said old King enius.

Wouldn't you like to put away your arrows and your spear and go and play with them?

Adalanta shook her head and lifted her chin as if in disdain.

Perhaps you would rather stay with the queen and look at the women's spin and weave, said enius.

No, answered Adalanta.

I am going with the warriors to hunt the wild boar in the forest.

How?

All the men opened their eyes.

They had never heard of such a thing as a girl going out with the heroes to hunt wild boars.

If she goes, then I will not, said one.

Nor I either, said another.

Nor I, said a third.

Why, the whole world would laugh at us, and we should never hear the end of it.

Several threatened to go home at once, and two brothers of Queen Althea rude, unmannerly fellows loudly declared that the hunt was for heroes and not for puny girls.

But Adalanta only grasped her spear more firmly and stood up tall and straight in the gateway of the palace.

Just then a handsome young man came forward.

It was maliga.

What's this?

He cried.

Who says that Atalanta should not go to the hunt?

You're afraid that she'll be braver than you?

That is all pretty heroes you are.

Let all such cowards go home at once.

But nobody went, and it was settled then and there that the maiden should have her own way.

And yet the brothers of Queen Althea kept on muttering and complaining.

For nine days the heroes and huntsmen feasted in the halls of King enius, and early on the tent they set out for the forest.

Soon the great beast was found, and he came charging out upon his foes.

The hero hid behind the trees or climbed up among the branches, for they had not expected to see so terrible a creature.

He stood in the middle of a little open space, tearing up the ground with his tusks.

The white foam rolled from his mouth, his eyes glistened red like fire, and he grunted so fiercely that the woods and hills echoed with fearful sounds.

Then one of the bravest of the men threw his spear, but that only made the beast fiercer than ever.

He charged upon the warrior, caught him before he could save himself, and tore him in pieces with his tusks.

Another man ventured too far from his hiding place and was also overtaken and killed.

One of the oldest and noblest of the heroes leveled his spear and threw it with all his force.

But it only grazed the boar's tough skin and glanced upward and pierced the heart of a warrior on the other side.

The boar was getting the best of the fight.

Atalanta now ran forward and threw her spear.

It struck the boar in the back, and a great stream of blood gushed out.

A warrior let fly an arrow, which put out one of the beast's eyes.

Then Maliga rushed up and pierced his heart with his spear.

The boar could no longer stand up, but he fought fiercely for some moments and then rolled over dead.

The heroes then cut off the beast's head, and it was as much as six of them could carry.

Then they took the skin from the great body and offered it to Maligar as a prize, because he had given the death wound to the wild boar.

But Maligar said, it belongs to Atalanta, because it was she who gave him the very first wound, and he gave it to her as the prize of honor.

You ought to have seen the tall huntress maiden then, as she stood among the trees with the boar's skin thrown over her left shoulder and reaching down to her feet.

She had never looked so much like.

The queen of the woods.

But the rude brothers of Queen Althea were vexed to think that a maiden should win the prize, and they began to make trouble.

One of them snatched Atalanta's spear from her hand and dragged the prize from her shoulders, and the other pushed her rudely and bad her go back to Arcadia and live again with the she bears on the mountainside.

All this vexed Maligar and he tried to make his uncles give back the spear and the prize and stop their unmannerly talk.

But they grew worse and worse and at last set upon Maligar and would have killed him if he had not drawn his sword to defend himself.

A fight followed and the rude fellows struck right and left as though they were blind.

Soon both were stretched dead upon the ground.

Some who did not see the fight said that Maligar killed them, but I would rather believe that they killed each other in their drunken fury.

And now all the company started back to the city.

Some carried the boar's huge head and some the different parts of his body, while others had made beers of the green branches and bore upon them the dead bodies of those who had been slain.

It was indeed a strange procession.

A young man who did not like Maliga had run on in front and had reached the city before the rest of the company had fairly started.

Queen Althea was standing at the door of the palace, and when she saw him she asked what had happened in the forest.

He told her at once that Maliga had killed her brothers, for he knew that with all their faults she loved them very dearly.

It was terrible to see her grief.

She shrieked and tore her hair and rushed wildly about from room to room.

Her senses left her and she did not know what she was doing.

It was the custom at that time for people to avenge the death of their kindred, and her only thought was how to punish the murderer of her brothers.

In her madness she forgot that Maliga was her son.

Then she thought of the three faiths and of the unburned firebrand which she had locked up in her chest so many years before.

She ran and got the stick and threw it into the fire that was burning on the hearth.

It kindled at once, and she watched it as it blazed up brightly.

Then it began to turn into ashes, and as the last spark died out, the noble Maliga, who was walking by the side of Atalanta dropped to the ground dead.

When they carried the news to Althea, she said not a word, for then she knew what she had done and her heart was broken.

She turned silently away and went to her own room.

When the king came home a few minutes later, he found her dead.

So ended the hunt in the wood of Calidon.

Five.

The Race for a Wife after the death of Maligar, atalanta went back to her old home among the mountains of Arcadia.

She was still the swift footed huntress, and she was never so happy as when in the green woods wandering among the trees, or chasing the wild deer.

All the world had heard about her, however, and the young heroes in the lands nearest to Arcadia did nothing else but talk about her beauty and her grace and her swiftness afoot and her courage.

Of course, every one of these young fellows wanted her to become his wife, and she might have been a queen any day if she had only said the word, for the richest king in Greece would have been glad to marry her.

But she cared nothing for any of the young men, and she liked the freedom of the green woods better than all the fine things she might have had in a palace.

The young men would not take no for an answer, however.

They could not believe that she really meant it.

And so they kept coming and staying until the woods of Arcadia were full of them, and there was no getting along with them at all.

So when she could think of no other way to get rid of them, atalanta called them together and said, you want to marry me, do you?

Well, if any one of you would like to run a race with me from this mountain to the bank of the river over there, he may do so.

And I'll be the wife of the one who outruns me.

Agreed?

Agreed.

Cried all the young fellows.

But listen, she said, whoever tries this race must also agree that if I outrun him, he must lose his life.

What long faces they all had.

Then about half of them drew away and went home.

But won't you give us a start of you a little?

Asked the others.

Oh, yes, she answered.

I'll give you the start by a hundred paces.

But remember, if I overtake anyone before he reaches the river, he shall lose his head.

That very day several others now found that they were in ill health, or that business called them home.

And when they were next looked for, they were not to be found.

But a good many who had some practice in sprinting across the country stayed and made up their minds to try their luck.

Could a mere girl outrun such fine fellows as they?

Nonsense.

So it happened that a race was run almost every day, and almost every day some poor fellow lost his head.

For the fleetest footed sprinter in all Greece was overtaken by Atalanta long before he could reach the riverbank.

But other young men kept coming and coming, and no sooner had one been put out of the way than another took his place.

One day there came from a distant town a handsome, tall young man named Melanian.

You'd better not run with me, said Adalanta, for I shall be sure to overtake you, and that will be the end of you.

We'll see about that, said Mailanian.

Now Mailonian, before coming to try his chance, had talked with Venus, the queen of love, who lived with Jupiter among the clouds on the mountaintop.

And he was so handsome and gentle and wise that Venus took pity on him and gave him three golden apples and told him what to do.

Well, when all was ready for the race, adalanta tried again to persuade Melania not to run, for she also took pity on him.

I'll be sure to overtake you, she said.

All right, said Mailonian, and the way he sped.

But he had the three golden apples in his pocket.

Adalanta gave him a good start, and then she followed after as swift as an arrow shot from the bow.

Mailonian was not a very fast runner, and it would not be hard for her to overtake him.

She thought that she would let him get almost to the goal, for she really pitied him.

He heard her coming close behind him.

He heard her quick breath as she gained on him very fast.

Then he threw one of the golden apples over his shoulder.

Now, if there was anything in the world that Adalanta admired, it was a bright stone or a pretty piece of yellow gold.

As the apple fell to the ground, she saw how beautiful it was, and she stopped to pick it up.

And while she was doing this, Melanian gained a good many paces.

But what of that?

In a minute she was as close behind him as ever, and yet she really did pity him.

Just then Melanian threw the second apple over his shoulder.

It was handsomer and larger than the first, and Atalanta could not bear the thought of allowing someone else to get it.

So she stopped to pick it up from among the long grass where it had fallen.

It took somewhat longer to find it than she had expected, and when she looked up again, Mailanian was 100ft ahead of her.

But that was no matter.

She could easily overtake him.

And yet, how she did pity the foolish young man.

Melanian heard her speeding like the wind behind him.

He took the third apple and threw it over to one side of the path where the ground sloped towards the river.

Atalanta's quick eye saw that it was far more beautiful than either of the others.

If it were not picked up at once, it would roll down into the deep water and be lost, and I would never do.

She turned aside from her course and ran after it.

It was easy enough to overtake the apple, but while she was doing so, Mailanian gained upon her again.

He was almost to the goal.

How she strained every muscle now to overtake him.

But after all, she felt that she did not care very much.

He was the handsomest young man that she had ever seen, and he had given her three golden apples.

It would be a great pity if he should have to die.

And so she let him reach the goal first.

After that, of course, Atalanta became Mailonian's wife, and he took her with him to his distant home.

And there they lived happily together for many, many years.

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