Doggerel couplet from the Sherd of Amenartas
I inscribe this history to
ANDREW LANG
in token of personal regard
and of
my sincere admiration
for his learning and his works
In giving to the world the record of what, looked at as an adventure only, is Isuppose one of the most wonderful and mysterious experiences ever undergone bymortal men, I feel it incumbent on me to explain what my exact connection withit is. And so I may as well say at once that I am not the narrator but only theeditor of this extraordinary history, and then go on to tell how it found itsway into my hands.
Some years ago I, the editor, was stopping with a friend, “virdoctissimus et amicus meus,” at a certain University, which for thepurposes of this history we will call Cambridge, and was one day