[Sidenote: Westrerne Winds Disperse The Ice.] And I Am Able To Reckon Vp A Great Many Of Our Countnmen Who

In the very act of hunting, wandring somewhat farre from the shoare (the ice being dispersed by westerne winds) & for

The space of many leagues resting vpon the ice, being chased with the violence of the tempest, & some whole daies & nights being tossed vp & downe in the waues of the raging sea, & so (for it followeth by good consequence out of this probleme of the historiographers) haue had experience of the torments, & paines of this hell of ice. Who at the last, the weather being changed, & the winds blowing at the North, being transported again to the shoare, in this their ship of ice, haue returned home in safety: some of which number are aliue at this day. Wherefore let such as be desirous of newes snatch vp this, & (if they please) let them frame a whole volume hereof, & adde it to their history. Neither do these vaine phantasies deserue otherwise to be handled & confuted, then with such like meriments, & sportings. But to lay aside all iesting, let vs returne to the matter from whence we are digressed. [Sidenote: Ice floateth not 7. or 8. moneths about Island.] First of all therefore it is euident enough out of the second section, viz. ice floateth not about this Iland, neither 8. nor 7. moneths in a yere then, that this ice (although at some times by shuffling together it maketh monstrous soundings & cracklings, & againe at some times with the beating of the water, it sendeth forth an hoarse kind of murmuring) doth any thing at all resound or lament, like vnto mans voice, we may in no case confesse. But wheras they say that, both in the Isle, and in mount Hecla we appoint certaine places, wherin the soules of our countrimen are tormented, we vtterly stand to the deniall of that and we thanke God & our Lord Iesus Christ from the botome of our hearts (who hath deliuered vs from death & hell, & opened vnto vs the gate of the kingdome of heaan because he hath instructed vs more truely, concernmg the place, whether the soules of our deceased countrimen depart, then these historiographers doe tell vs. We know and maintain that the soules of the godly are transported immediatly out of their bodily prisons, not into the Papists purgatory, nor into the Elysian fields, but into Abrahams bosome, into the hand of God, & into the heauenly paradise. We know & maintaine concerning the soules of the wicked, that they wander not into the fires & ashes of mountaines or into visible ice, but immediatly are carried away into vtter darknesse, where is weeping & gnashing of teeth, where there is colde also, & fire not comon, but far beyond our knowledge & curious disputation. Where not onely bodies, but soules also, that is spirituall substances are tormented. And we do also hold, that the Islanders are no whit nearer vnto this extreame & darke prison, in regard of the situation of place, then the Germans, Danes, Frenchmen, Italians, or any other nation whatsoeuer.

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