title: Adventures in Unhistory: Conjectures on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends
author:  Avram Davidson 
description: Adult/High SchoolThis collection of short essays is a real treasure. Davidson explains the origins of 15 myths, including werewolves, dragons, mermaids, unicorns, where Sinbad actually sailed, and the phoenix. He agrees with Kipling, whom he quotes as noting: "There are nine and sixty ways/Of constructing tribal lays/And every single one of them is right!" Kipling is just one of the many authors, historians, and philosophers to whom the well-read and eclectic Davidson turns to support the suppositions he himself posits about the "true" origins of each myth. He sometimes pits classic explainers against one another, as in the essay explaining the root of lycanthropy: one could find it in "Bulfinch's Mythology, but Rabelais is more fun." Each aside and every digression offer another path to follow or connection to make. The author's narrative prose itself invites sharing aloud, serving as a great model for student writers. Not only is this a wonderful resource for information on myths and legends, but it also comes with the bonuses of real literary adventures and some of the most entertaining nonfiction writing in the realm of popular culture.<i>Dana Cobern-Kullman, Luther Burbank Middle School, Burbank, CA</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
zlib_text: ## Makers of History
  
  # Pyrrhus
  
  ###  By JACOB ABBOTT
  
  WITH ENGRAVINGS
  
  NEW YORK AND LONDON
  
  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
  
  1901
  
  * * *
  
  Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred
  and fifty-four, by
  
  Harper & Brothers ,
  
  in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New
  York.
  
  * * *
  
  * * *
  
  ##  PREFACE.
  
  In respect to the heroes of ancient history, who lived in times antecedent to
  the period when the regular records of authentic history commence, no reliance
  can be placed upon the actual verity of the accounts which have come down to
  us of their lives and actions. In those ancient days there was, in fact, no
  line of demarkation between romance and history, and the stories which were
  told of Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, Romulus, Pyrrhus, and other personages as
  ancient as they, are all more or less fabulous and mythical. We learn this as
  well from the internal evidence furnished by the narratives themselves as from
  the researches of 