For No Man May Pass By That Way Goodly, But In
Time Of Winter, For The Perilous Waters And Wicked Mareys, That Be
In Those Countries, That No Man May Pass But If It Be Strong Frost
And Snow Above.
For if the snow ne were not, men might not go upon
the ice, ne horse ne car neither.
And it is well a three journeys of such way to pass from Prussia to
the land of Saracens habitable. And it behoveth to the Christian
men, that shall war against them every year, to bear their victuals
with them; for they shall find there no good. And then must they
let carry their victual upon the ice with cars that have no wheels,
that they clepe sleighs. And as long as their victuals last they
may abide there, but no longer; for there shall they find no wight
that will sell them any victual or anything. And when the spies
see any Christian men come upon them, they run to the towns, and
cry with a loud voice; KERRA, KERRA, KERRA. And then anon they arm
them and assemble them together.
And ye shall understand that it freezeth more strongly in those
countries than on this half. And therefore hath every man stews in
his house, and in those stews they eat and do their occupations all
that they may. For that is at the north parts that men clepe the
Septentrional where it is all only cold. For the sun is but little
or none toward those countries. And therefore in the Septentrion,
that is very north, is the land so cold, that no man may dwell
there. And, in the contrary, toward the south it is so hot, that
no man ne may dwell there, because that the sun, when he is upon
the south, casteth his beams all straight upon that part.
CHAPTER XV
OF THE CUSTOMS OF SARACENS, AND OF THEIR LAW. AND HOW THE SOLDAN
REASONED ME, AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK; AND OF THE BEGINNING OF MOHAMMET
NOW, because that I have spoken of Saracens and of their country -
now, if ye will know a part of their law and of their belief, I
shall tell you after that their book that is clept ALKARON telleth.
And some men clepe that book MESHAF. And some men clepe it HARME,
after the diverse languages of the country. The which book
Mohammet took them. In the which book, among other things, is
written, as I have often-time seen and read, that the good shall go
to paradise, and the evil to hell; and that believe all Saracens.
And if a man ask them what paradise they mean, they say, to
paradise that is a place of delights where men shall find all
manner of fruits in all seasons, and rivers running of milk and
honey, and of wine and of sweet water; and that they shall have
fair houses and noble, every man after his desert, made of precious
stones and of gold and of silver; and that every man shall have
four score wives all maidens, and he shall have ado every day with
them, and yet he shall find them always maidens.
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