Page:The art of story-telling, with nearly half a hundred stories, y Julia Darrow Cowles .. (IA artofstorytellin00cowl).pdf/114

 straight line drawn horizontally, in the middle of which is a cross, representing the time of Christ. The portion of the line to the left indicates the time before Christ; that to the right, the time since Christ. Present day stories may be shown as belonging to the right hand portion of the chart, New Testament stories to the middle portion, and the myth to the left hand. A very few words of explanation will suffice to make plain the meaning of the chart as giving the relative time of the story's origin. Then proceed to tell the story as usual.

The first story in a series planned along these lines, may well be one of the earliest myths, that of Phaeton, or of Vulcan, illustrating the earliest conception of the phenomenon of light and of fire. The Indian myth, giving the origin of fire as conceived by the North American Indian, should also be told, and located on the right hand side of the chart.

The story of Cupid can be traced from its origin in the old time myth, through Greek literature and on into modern poems and prose, thus showing how the original thought of the myth-making period grows into new