Great Stories

Thirteen stories

Pick one

Every one of these is told twice: the version everybody knows, and then what the record actually says. Sometimes the record is duller. Sometimes it is a great deal worse. Occasionally the legend turns out to be true, which is the best outcome of all.

01The hawk that chose the hillWhy the castle stands where it stands, and who says so 02The document written because the family was finishedEverything known about the first Habsburgs runs through one book 03Rudolf gives away his horseA priest, a swollen stream, and the most useful story this family ever told 04The duke who forged his own chartersHe was caught. He kept the good bit anyway 05A E I O UFive letters on everything he owned, and he never once explained them 06Twenty-eight bronze giants guarding an empty boxThe grandest tomb in Europe, and nobody is in it 07The emperor who ordered his own body destroyedWhat Maximilian left instructions to have done to him 08Let others wage war. You, happy Austria, marryThe neatest summary of a dynasty ever written, and who actually wrote it 09The glass of cold waterA hard game of pelota, a drink, and a dead king of twenty-eight 10Juana the MadThe one everybody knows, and the one this family would rather you read properly 11The emperor who attended his own funeralCharles V, a monastery in Extremadura, and a rehearsal 12The emperor and the lion who died togetherA menagerie at Prague, an astronomer, and two horoscopes 13William Tell and the cruel bailiffEverybody knows this one, and in it we are the villains