ese Duck
The Little Mermaid (much shortened)
The Nightingale (shortened)
The Girl who trod on a Loaf
The Emperor's New Clothes

Another familiar and easily attainable type of story is the classic myth,
as retold in Kupfer's _Legends of Greece and Rome_.[1] Of these, again,
certain tales are more successfully adapted to children than others. Among
the best for telling are:

Arachne
Pandora
Midas
Apollo and Daphne
Apollo and Hyacinthus
Narcissus
Latona and the Rustics
Proserpine

[Footnote 1: A well-nigh indispensable book for teachers is Guerber's
_Myths of Greece and Rome_, which contains in brief form a complete
collection of the classic myths.]

CHAPTER III

ADAPTATION OF STORIES FOR TELLING

It soon becomes easy to pick out from a collection such stories as can be
well told; but at no time is it easy to find a sufficient number of such
stories. Stories simple, direct, and sufficiently full of incident for
telling, yet having the beautiful or valuable motive we desire for
children, do not lie hidden in every book. And even many of the stories
which are most charming to read do not answer the double demand, for the
appeal to the eye differs in many important respects from that to the ear.
Unless one is able to change the form of a story to suit the needs of oral
delivery, one is likely to suffer from poverty of material. Perhaps the
commonest need of change is in the case of a story too long to tell, yet
embodying some one beautiful incident or lesson; or one including a series
of such incidents. The story of _The Nuernberg Stove_, by Ouida,[1] is a
good example of the latter kind; Ruskin's _King of the Golden River_ will
serve as an illustration of the former.

[Footnote 1: See _Bimbi_, by Ouida. (Chatto. 2s.)]

The problem in one case is chiefly one of elimination; in the other it is
also in a large degree one of rearrangement. In both cases I have
purposely chosen extreme instances, as furnishing plainer illustration.
The usual story needs less adaptation than these, but the same kind, in
its own degree. Condensation and rearrangement are the commonest forms of
change required.

Pure condensation is probably the easier for most persons. With _The
Nuernberg Stove_ in mind for reference, let us see what the process
includes. This story can be readily found by anyone who is interested in
the following example of adaptation, for nearly every library includes in
its catalogue the juvenile works