This volume gathers Calvino's three fantastical tales under the title Our Ancestors: The Cloven Viscount, The Baron in the Trees and The Nonexistent Knight. Each is set in a distant, loosely historical past and follows an unusual hero: a man split in two, a boy who lives in the treetops, and an empty suit of armour that nonetheless serves in Charlemagne's army. Witty and light in tone, the stories use fable to explore how people can be divided, detached or hollow in the modern world, and how they might find wholeness.