Valdar the Oft-Born

by George Chetwynd Griffith

Excerpt from Valdar, the Oft-Born

The kings and the warriors who to you are but, names blazoned upon the scroll of history, have been my captains and boon companions-in-arms, my friends or my enemies as the Fates willed it. I have looked upon their faces with the same eyes that are now looking down upon this written page. I have loved them and hated them, feasted and fought with them, as you have done with the men of to-day and yesterday. I have gazed into the eyes of women whose love-glance has set empires ablaze, and I have heard the words Of immortal wisdom fall from the lips of the sages and prophets who have revealed the Divine to men, and founded the religions of the world. I have seen the fickle tide of empire ebb and ?ow from East to West, and West to East again, and I have joined in the triumph-songs of victorious armies marching home from conquest over lands where now the desert winds whistle among broken ruins, or where the ploughman Shouts to his horses as they drag the peaceful steel through the turning furrows.

Genres: Fantasy

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1895

About the author

George Griffith (1857 – 1906), full name George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones, was a prolific British science fiction writer and noted explorer who wrote during the late Victorian and Edwardian age. Many of his visionary tales appeared in magazines such as Pearson's Magazine and Pearson's Weekly before being published as novels. Griffith was extremely popular in the United Kingdom, though he failed to find similar acclaim in the United States, in part due to his revolutionary and socialist views. A journalist, rather than scientist, by background, what his stories lack in scientific rigour and literary grace they make up for in sheer exuberance of execution.