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. And when they die, they make great feast
and great joy and revel, and then they cast them into a great fire
burning. And those that love well their husbands, if their
husbands be dead, they cast them also in the fire with their
children, and burn them. And they say that the fire shall cleanse
them of all filths and of all vices, and they shall go pured and
clean into another world to their husbands, and they shall lead
their children with them. And the cause why that they weep, when
their children be born is this; for when they come into this world,
they come to labour, sorrow and heaviness. And why they make joy
and gladness at their dying is because that, as they say, then they
go to Paradise where the rivers run milk and honey, where that men
see them in joy and in abundance of goods, without sorrow and
labour.
In that isle men make their king evermore by election, and they ne
choose him not for no noblesse nor for no riches, but such one as
is of good manners and of good conditions, and therewithal
rightfull, and also that he be of great age, and that he have no
children. In that isle men be full rightfull and they do rightfull
judgments in every cause both of rich and poor, small and great,
after the quantity of the trespass that is mis-done. And the king
may not doom no man to death without assent of his barons and other
men wise of counsel, and that all the court accord thereto. And if
the king himself do any homicide or any crime, as to slay a man, or
any such case, he shall die there for. But he shall not be slain
as another man; but men shall defend, in pain of death, that no man
be so hardy to make him company ne to speak with him, ne that no
man give him, ne sell him, ne serve him, neither of meat ne of
drink; and so shall he die in mischief. They spare no man that
hath trespassed, neither for love, ne for favour ne for riches, ne
for noblesse; but that he shall have after that he hath done.
Beyond that isle is another isle, where is great multitude of folk.
And they will not, for no thing, eat flesh of hares, ne of hens, ne
of geese; and yet they bring forth enough, for to see them and to
behold them only; but they eat flesh of all other beasts, and drink
milk. In that country they take their daughters and their sisters
to their wives, and their other kinswomen. And if there be ten men
or twelve men or more dwelling in an house, the wife of everych of
them shall be common to them all that dwell in that house; so that
every man may lie with whom he will of them on one night, and with
another, another night. And if she have any child, she may give it
to what man that she list, that hath companied with her, so that no
man knoweth there whether the child be his or another's. And if
any man say to them, that they nourish other men's children, they
answer that so do over men theirs.
In that country and by all Ind be great plenty of cockodrills, that
is a manner of a long serpent, as I have said before. And in the
night they dwell in the water, and on the day upon the land, in
rocks and in caves. And they eat no meat in all the winter, but
they lie as in a dream, as do the serpents. These serpents slay
men, and they eat them weeping; and when they eat they move the
over jaw, and not the nether jaw, and they have no tongue.
In that country and in many other beyond that, and also in many on
this half, men put in work the seed of cotton, and they sow it
every year. And then groweth it in small trees, that bear cotton.
And so do men every year, so that there is plenty of cotton at all
times. Item; in this isle and in many other, there is a manner of
wood, hard and strong. Whoso covereth the coals of that wood under
the ashes thereof, the coals will dwell and abide all quick, a year
or more. And that tree hath many leaves, as the juniper hath. And
there be also many trees, that of nature they will never burn, ne
rot in no manner. And there be nut trees, that bear nuts as great
as a man's head.
There also be many beasts, that be clept orafles. In Arabia, they
be clept gerfaunts. That is a beast, pomely or spotted, that is
but a little more high than is a steed, but he hath the neck a
twenty cubits long; and his croup and his tail is as of an hart;
and he may look over a great high house.
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