And if they see a ship and men therein, anon they enter
into the sea for to take them.
And men said us, that in an isle beyond that were giants of greater
stature, some of forty-five foot, or of fifty foot long, and, as
some men say, some of fifty cubits long. But I saw none of those,
for I had no lust to go to those parts, because that no man cometh
neither into that isle ne into the other, but if he be devoured
anon. And among those giants be sheep as great as oxen here, and
they bear great wool and rough. Of the sheep I have seen many
times. And men have seen, many times, those giants take men in the
sea out of their ships, and brought them to land, two in one hand
and two in another, eating them going, all raw and all quick.
Another isle is there toward the north, in the sea Ocean, where
that be full cruel and full evil women of nature. And they have
precious stones in their eyen. And they be of that kind, that if
they behold any man with wrath, they slay him anon with the
beholding, as doth the basilisk.
Another isle is there, full fair and good and great, and full of
people, where the custom is such, that the first night that they be
married, they make another man to lie by their wives for to have
their maidenhead: and therefore they take great hire and great
thank. And there be certain men in every town that serve of none
other thing; and they clepe them cadeberiz, that is to say, the
fools of wanhope. For they of the country hold it so great a thing
and so perilous for to have the maidenhead of a woman, that them
seemeth that they that have first the maidenhead putteth him in
adventure of his life. And if the husband find his wife maiden
that other next night after that she should have been lain by of
the man that is assigned therefore, peradventure for drunkenness or
for some other cause, the husband shall plain upon him that he hath
not done his devoir, in such cruel wise as though the officers
would have slain him. But after the first night that they be lain
by, they keep them so straitly that they be not so hardy to speak
with no man. And I asked them the cause why that they held such
custom: and they said me, that of old time men had been dead for
deflowering of maidens, that had serpents in their bodies that
stung men upon their yards, that they died anon: and therefore
they held that customs to make other men ordained therefore to lie
by their wives, for dread of death, and to assay the passage by
another [rather] than for to put them in that adventure.
After that is another isle where that women make great sorrow when
their children be y-born.
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