00 RITCHIE'S FABULAE FACILES INTRO.

As a learner of Latin I have been disappointed by the lack of easy-to-read latin stories and having discovered RITCHIE’S FABULAE FACILES or RITCHIE’S EASY STORIES I have embarked on an exciting project to resurrect the stories which I believe are as relevant and interesting to learners of Latin today, as they were when they were first published over a hundred years ago. I hope you like them as much as I do.
There are 4 stories based on 4 Greek myths: PERSEUS; HERCULES; THE ARGONAUTS; and ULYSEES. I have adopted the same division of the stories into numbered chapters but I have altered the format dramatically in the following ways: The first titled paragraph is called section a) and presents the section with macrons and no notes; section b) provides detailed notes on vocabulary and grammar relating to the paragraph and any vocab not found in this section will be found in the WORDLIST under PAGES and further grammar exlanations can be found in ESSENTIAL GRAMMAR NOTES also under PAGES (top right of sidebar). Section c) provides an interlinear translation of the text (which is non-existent in the orginal) which I have prepared, as I think this is an excellent way to learn new vocabulary without spending an inordinate amount of time looking up words in the dictionary and it also enables the learner to clear up any unresolved difficulties encountered on initial reading. It sounds rather clumsy in places but I have sacrificed idiomatic English in favour of a close translation as I think it makes it easier to learn this way and you can, I am sure, invent your own improved translations once you have the gist of the meaning. I personally love interlinear translation as I think it saves a lot of time; I know these are not perfect but I hope they make the stories a little more accessible to complete beginners and I welcome comments and corrections. After a short time you should be able to read through section a) with complete understanding without having to refer to sections b) or c).  I have had great fun reading the stories and making sense of them and I hope you will too.