There has been no attempt to give a Greek character to the story. Even when the alteration of a letter would have made a good Greek name, as in the case of Pausanius, it has not been altered, and Sir Samson, Sir Balaan, speak for themselves. But, on the other hand, as the tales make him Christian or Pagan by turns, we have not tried to make him consistent. In the same way, it was found impossible to leave out the visit to Jerusalem, which makes such a central point in the medieval stories.
[Sidenote: _Medieval Illuminated Copies._]
A word as to the illustrations--not those of our book, but those of the veritable medieval illuminators. Among the chief treasures of the British Museum are its illuminated copies of the Alexander Romance, notably 19. D. I and 20. B. XX. Some others are older, but these are filled with most beautiful paintings of the incidents of the story. I may be allowed to mention one thing here which I have noticed. In each of them, at the beginning, is a sort of frontispiece divided into compartments, and labelled The Castle of Cairo, The Town of Babylon (with Anectanabus shown on the walls or elsewhere), The Garden of Balm, and The Mills of Babylon. Now, these seem to have no connection with the French prose translation in which they are found. Cairo is not mentioned in it, there is no story of a garden of balm, and there is no story of the mills of Babylon, which are large floating water-mills like those at Old London Bridge.
FINISHED THIS THIRTIETH DAY OF MAY 1894 BY ME, ROBERT STEELE, AND PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO., LONDON, FOR DAVID NUTT IN THE STRAND.
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg 25: ‘and gan question’ replaced by ‘and began to question’.
Pg 55: ‘CHAP. VII’ replaced by ‘CHAPTER VII’.
Pg 131: ‘and whatsover men’ replaced by ‘and whatsoever men’.
Pg 163: ‘the earth. Then’ replaced by ‘the earth.” Then’.