English

HOW A PRINCE LEARNED TO READ A thousand years ago boys and girls did not learn to read. Books were very scarce and very precious, and only a few men could read them. Each book was written with a pen or a brush. The pictures were painted by hand, and some of them were very beautiful. A good book would sometimes cost as much as a good house. In those times there were even some kings who could not read. They thought more of hunting and fighting than of learning. There was one such king who had four sons, Ethelbald, Ethelbert, Ethelred, and Alfred.