Four Stories About Odysseus

My nephews have recently started asking their dad for stories about Odysseus, that complicated man of pain from the Bible. Hearing about my brother’s stories inspired me to write a couple of my own. They’re for young kids, so it’s not exactly high literature, but I think there’s something interesting to say about how many of the great stories of all time are actually written very simply, any only seem like a bramble of text because they come from another time and language.Odysseus and the ShipwrecksAs Odysseus and his crew were sailing home for Ithaka, the lookout on his ship spotted two long islands. With a cry of “land ho!” they approached, wondering if they would find hospitality, danger, or only lifeless rocks. As they approached, they saw that the islands were laid out tip to tip, so that there was a long and thin strait of water between them, with several ships at anchor.The first mate Eurylochus said “these islands have ports facing each other. They must be traders, no one we…