Clearly, we have here the art of the storyteller rather than the concerns of the scholarly historian. This is not to say that the stories are necessarily completely fictional, but that they lie somewhere on the continuum that runs from imaginative writing to historical reporting. It may not be possible for us to say quite where they lie on this continuum. Hasty judgments either way should be avoided. I shall discuss specific historical issues as and when they arise in the stories. Fiction and truth