Cum anno 1608. ferverent dissidia inter fratres Imp. Rudolphum et Matthiam Archiducem; eorumque actiones vulgo ad exempla referrent, ex historia Bohemica petita; ego publica vulgi curiositate excitus, ad Bohemica legenda animum appuli. Cumque incidissem in historiam Libussæ Viraginis, arte Magica celebratissimæ: factum quadam nocte, ut post contemplationem siderum et Lunæ, lecto compositus, altius obdormiscerem: atque mihi per somnum visus sum librum ex Nundinis allatum perlegere, cuius hic erat tenor. Mihi Duracoto nomen est, patria Islandia, quam veteres Thulen dixêre: mater erat Fiolxhildis, quæ nuper mortua, scribendi mihi peperit licentiam, cujus rei cupiditate pridem arsi. Dum viveret, hoc diligenter egit, ne scriberem. Dicebat enim, multos esse perniciosos osores artium, qui quod præ hebetudine mentis non capiunt, id calumnientur: legesque figant injuriosas humano generi; quibus sanè legibus non pauci damnati, Heclæ voraginibus fuerint absorpti. Quod nomen esset patri meo, ipsa nunquam dixit, piscatorem fuisse, et centum quinquaginta annorum senem, decessisse perhibebat, me tertium ætatis annum agente, cùm ille septuagesimum plus minus annum in suo vixisset matrimonio. Primis pueritiæ annis mater me manu trahens, interdumque humeris sublevans, crebrò adducere est solita in humiliora juga, montis Heclæ, præsertim circa festum divi Joannis, quando Sol totis 24. horis conspicuus, nocti nullum relinquit locum. Ipsa herbas nonnullas legens multis cæremoniis, domique coquens, sacculos factitabat ex pellibus caprinis, quos inflatos ad vicinum portum venum importans pro Navium patronis, victum hoc pacto sustentabat. Cùm aliquando per curiositatem rescisso sacculo, quem mater ignara vendebat, herbisque et linteis, quæ acu picta, varios præferebant characteres, explicatis, ipsam hoc lucello fraudassem: mater irâ succensa, me loco sacculi Nauclero proprium addixit, ut ipsa pecuniam retineret. Atque is postridiè ex insperato solvens è portu, secundo vento quasi Bergas Nordwegiæ tendebat. Post aliquot dies Boreâ surgente, inter Nordwegiam et Angliam delatus, Daniam petijt, fretumque emensus, cùm haberet literas Episcopi Islandici, tradendas Tychoni Brahe Dano; qui in Insula Wena habitabat, ego verò vehementer ægrotarem ex jactatione et auræ tepore insueto, quippè quatuordecim aunorum adolescens; navi ad littus appulsa me apud piscatorem insulanum exposuit cum literis; et spe reditus factâ, solvit. Literis traditis Braheus valdè exhilaratus, cepit ex me multa quærere; quæ ego linguæ imperitus non intellexi, paucis verbis exceptis. Itaque negocium suis dedit Studiosis, quos magno numero alebat, uti mecum crebrò loquerentur, factumque liberalitate Brahei, et paucarum septimanarum exercitio, ut mediocriter Danicè loquerer. Nec minùs ego promptus in narrando, quàm illi erant in quærendo. Multa quippè insueta mirabar, multa mirantibus ex mea patriâ nova recensebam. Denique reversus navis magister, meque repetens, repulsam tulit, valdè me gaudente. Mirum in modum mihi arridebant Astronomica exercitia; quippè Studiosi et Braheus, mirabilibus machinis totis noctibus intendebant Lunæ sideribusque, quæ me res admonebat matris, quippè et ipsa assiduè cum Luna solita erat colloqui. Hac igitur occasione ego patria semibarbarus, conditione egentissimus, in divinissimæ scientiæ cognitionem veni: quæ mihi ad majora viam paravit. Etenim exactis annis aliquot in hac Insula, tandem me cupiditas incessit revisendæ patriæ; rebar enim non grave mihi futurum ob acquisitam scientiam; emergere ad aliquam in mea gente rudi dignitatem. Salutato igitur patrono, et veniâ discessus impetratâ, veni Hafniam; nactusque socios itineris, qui me ob linguæ et regionis cognitionem libenter in suum patrocinium susceperunt: redij in patriam, quinto postquam excesseram anno. Prima mei reditus felicitas erat, quod matrem inveni adhuc spirantem, et eadem, quæ olim, factitantem; finemque ei pœnitudinis diuturnæ, ob amissum temeritate filium, vivus et ornatus attuli. Vergebat tunc annus in Autumnum, succedebantque deinceps noctes illæ nostræ longæ, quippè Natalitio Christi mense Sol in Meridie vix parum emergens, è vestigio rursum conditur. Ita Mater per hanc vacationem à suis operis, mihi adhærere, à me non discedere, quocunque me cum commendatitijs literis recepissem; percontari jam de Terris, quas adijssem, jam de Cœlo, quam scientiam me didicisse vehementissimè gaudebat; comparare quæ ipsa habebat comperta, cum meis narratis, exclamare jam se promptam esse ad moriendum, ut quæ scientiæ suæ, quam solam possideret, filium hæredem sit relictura. Ego naturâ cupidissimus perdiscendi nova, quæsivi vicissim ex ipsa, de suis artibus, et quos earum habuisset magistros in gente tantùm à cæteris diremta. Tunc illa quodam die, spacio ad loquendum sumpto, rem omnem à primis initiis repetijt, in hunc ferè modum? Prospectum est Duracote fili, non cæteris solùm provinciis, in quas venisti, sed nostræ etiam patriæ. Etsi enim nos urgent frigora et tenebræ, aliaque incommoda, quæ nunc demùm sentio, postquam ex te felicitatem intellexi regionum cæterarum: at nos ingenijs abundamus, nobis præstò sunt sapientissimi spiritus, qui tantam lucem regionum cæterarum, strepitumque hominum perosi, nostras appetunt umbras, et nobiscum familiariter conversantur. Sunt ex iis præcipui Novem, ex quibus unus mihi peculiariter notus, et vel maximè omnium mitis atque innoxius viginti et uno characteribus evocatur. Cujus ope non rarò momento temporis in alias oras, quas ipsi dixero, transportor, aut si ab aliquibus longinquitate absterreor, quærendo de iis, tantùm proficio, quantum si præsens ibi essem: qui pleraque eorum, quæ tu vel oculis notasti, vel fando accepisti, vel ex libris hausisti, eodem quo tu modo, mihi recensuit. Imprimis ejus, de qua toties mihi dixit, regionis, te velim spectatorem fieri, me comite: valdè enim mira sunt, quæ de ea narrat. Levaniam indigitavit. Nec mora consentio, ut Magistrum illa suum accersat, et consideo, paratus ad audiendam totam et itineris rationem, et regionis descriptionem. Tempus jam erat vernum, Lunâ crescente in cornua, quæ ut primum Sole sub Horizontem condito cepit enitere, juncta Planetæ Saturno in Tauri signo; mater seorsim à me se recipiens in proximum bivium, et pauculis verbis, clamore sublato, enunciatis, quibus petitionem suam proponebat; cæremoniisque peractis, revertitur, prætensâ dextræ manus palmâ silentium imperans, propterque me assidet. Vix capita vestibus (ut conventum erat) involveramus; cum ecce screatus exoritur blæsæ et obtusæ vocis; et statim in hunc modum, sed idiomate Islandico, infit. Quinquaginta millibus miliarium Germanicorum in ætheris profundo sita est LEVANIA insula: iter ad eam hinc, vel ex eâ in has terras rarissimè patet: et cùm patet nostræ quidem genti facilè est; hominibus verò transportandis planè difficilimum, et cum summo vitæ periculo conjunctum: Nulli à nobis sedentarij adsciscuntur in hunc comitatum, nulli corpulenti, nulli delicati; sed legimus eos, qui ætatem veredorum assiduo usu consumunt, aut qui navibus frequenter Indias adeunt, pane biscocto, allio, piscibus duratis, et cibis abhorrentibus victitare sueti. Inprimis nobis aptæ sunt vetulæ exsuccæ, quibus indè à pueritia trita est ratio, hircos nocturnos, aut furcas, aut trita pallia inequitandi, trajiciendique per immania terrarum spacia. Nulli è Germania viri apti sunt: Hispanorum sicca corpora non respuimus. Totum iter quantum est, quatuor ad summum horarum spacio absolvitur. Neque enim nobis semper occupatissimis, anteà constat de tempore eundi, quàm Luna ab orientis partibus ceperit deficere: quæ ubi tota luxerit, nobis adhuc in itinere hærentibus: irrita redditur nostra profectio. Tàm præceps occasio efficit, ut paucos ex humana gente, nec alios, nisi nostri observantissimos comites habeamus. Ergò hominem aliquem hujus modi agminatim invadimus, omnesque subtus nitentes, in altum eum tollimus. Prima quæque molitio durissima ipsi accidit. Nec enim aliter torquetur ac si pulvere Bombardico excussus, montes et maria tranaret. Proptereà Narcoticis et Opiatis, statim in principio sopiendus est, et membratim explicandus, ne corpus à podice, caput à corpore gestetur, sed ut violentia in singula membra dividatur. Tunc excipit nova difficultas, ingens frigus, et prohibita respiratio, quorum illi, ingenita nobis vi, huic verò, spongijs humectis ad nares admotis, obviam imus. Confectâ primâ parte itineris, facilior redditur vectio. Tunc libero aëri exponimus corpora, manusque subtrahimus. Atque illa in sese conglobantur ut aranei: quæ nos solo ferè nutu transportamus, adeò ut denique moles corporea sponte suâ vergat in locum propositum. Sed parum nobis est utilis hæc ῥοπὴ, quia nimis tarda: itaque nutu ut dixi acceleramus; et præcedimus jam corpus, ne durissimo impactu in Lunam, damni quid patiatur. Solent homines, cum expergiscuntur, queri de ineffabili membrorum omnium lassitudine; à qua serò admodum se recipiunt, ut ambulent. Multæ prætereà occurrunt difficultates, quas longum esset recensere. Nobis nihil admodum evenit mali. Tenebras enim Telluris quam longæ illæ sunt, confertim inhabitamus; quæ ubi LEVANIAM attigerint, præstò sumus, quasi ex navi in terram exscendentes: et ibi nos properè in speluncas et loca tenebrosa recipimus, ne nos Sol in aperto paulò pòst obruturus, optato diversorio ejiciat, umbramque discedentem insequi cogat. Dantur ibi nobis induciæ exercendorum ingeniorum ex animi sententia; conferimus cum ejus provinciæ dæmonibus, initaque societate, ubi primùm locus Sole carere ceperit, junctis agminibus in umbram exspaciamur, et si illa mucrone suo, quod plerumque fit, Tellurem feriat, Terris et nos, socijs exercitibus incumbimus: quod non aliàs nobis licet, quàm cum Solem homines viderint deficere. Hinc evenit, ut defectus Solis adeò metuantur. Atque hæc de itinere in LEVANIAM dicta sunto. Sequitur, ut de ipsius provinciæ forma dicam, exorsus, more Geographorum, ab ijs, quæ cœlitùs illi eveniunt. Etsi siderum fixorum aspectus tota Levania habet nobiscum eosdem; motus tamen Planetarum et quantitates, ab ijs, quas nos hîc videmus, observat diversissimas: adeò ut planè alia sit totius apud ipsos Astronomiæ ratio. Quemadmodum igitur Geographi nostri orbem terræ dividunt in quinque Zonas, propter Phœnomena Cœlestia: Sic Levania ex duobus constat hemisphærijs, uno Subvolvarum, altero Privolvarum: quorum illud perpetuò fruitur suâ volvâ, quæ est illis vice nostræ Lunæ; hoc verò Volvæ conspectu in æternum privatur. Et circulus Hemisphæria dividens, instar nostri coluri solstitiorum, per polos mundi transit, appellaturque Divisor. Quæ igitur utrique sunt communia hemisphærio, primo loco explicabo. Itaque Levania tota vicissitudines sentit diei et noctis, ut nos: Sed carent illi hac nostrâ annuâ varietate toto anno. Per totam enim Levaniam æquantur dies ferè noctibus: nisi quòd Privolvis regulariter omnis dies est brevior suâ nocte; Subvolvis longior. Quid autem per circuitum annorum 8 varietur, infrà erit dicendum. Sub utroque verò polorum, in compensationem noctis, Sol dimidius tegitur, dimidius lucet, montes circulo circumiens. Nec enim minùs Levania suis incolis immota stare videtur, currentibus astris, quàm Terra nostra nobis hominibus. Nox et dies juncti, æquant unum ex nostratibus mensibus: quippè Sole orituro manè, integrum ferè Zodiaci signum postridiè plus apparet, quàm pridie. Et ut nobis in uno anno 365 Soles, et 366. sphæræ fixarum, seu præcisiùs in 4 annis 1461. Soles, sed 1465. sphæræ fixarum volvuntur: Sic illis in uno anno Sol duodecies, sphæra fixarum tredecies, seu præcisiùs in 8 annis Sol 99ies, sphæræ fixarum centies septies circumit. Sed familiarior est ipsis circulus annorum novendecim. Etenim in tot annis Sol oritur ducenties tricies quinquies, fixæ verò ducenties quinquagies quater. Jam quod singula Hemisphæria seorsim attinet, ingens inter ea est diversitas. Neque enim tantum præsentia et absentia Volvæ dissimilima exhibet spectacula; sed hæc ipsa communia Phænomena, diversissimos habent effectus hinc et inde: adeò ut rectiùs fortassè Privolvarum hemisphærium dici possit intemperatum; Subvolvarum temperatum. Nam apud Privolvas nox est nostros quindecim vel sedecim dies naturales longa, perpetuis horrida tenebris, quantæ apud nos sunt nocte illuni, quippe nullis Volvæ radijs ne illa quidem illustratur unquam; itaque omnia rigent gelu et pruinis insuperque et ventis rigidissimis et validissimis: succedit dies, quatuordecim nostros longa, vel eo paulò minus, quibus et Sol major, et sub fixis tardus, et venti nulli. Itaque immensus æstus. Atque sic spacio nostratis mensis, seu diei LEVANICI, uno eodemque loco et æstus est quindecies ferventior Africano nostro, et gelu intolerabilius Quivirano. Transiturus ad hoc, incipio ab ejus limitaneis, qui circulum divisorem inhabitant. Ijs enim hoc peculiare est, ut digressiones Veneris et Mercurij à Sole observent multo majores quàm nos. Ijsdem et Venus certis temporibus duplo apparet major, quàm nobis, præsertim ijs, qui sub polo Septentrionali habitant. Omnium verò jucundissima est in Levania, speculatio Volvæ suæ, cujus illi fruuntur conspectu in compensationem Lunæ nostræ; qua cùm ipsi, tùm et Privolvæ carent penitùs. Et à Volvæ hujus perenni præsentia regio ea denominatur Subvolvana; sicut reliqua ab ejus absentia, Privolvarum dicitur; quòd sint privati conspectu Volvæ. Notis Terrarum incolis Luna nostra, cùm plena est exoriens, superque domos longinquas ingrediens, dolij circulo videtur adæquari; ubi in medium cœli ascenderit, vix humani vultus latitudinem repræsentat. Subvolvis verò Volva sua in ipso Cœli medio (quem situm obtinet apud eos, qui habitant in meditullio seu umbilico hujus Hemisphærij;) paulò minùs quadruplo longiori diametro cernitur, quàm nobis nostra Luna, adeò, ut discorum instituta comparatione, quindecuplo major sit illorum Volva, Lunâ nostrâ. Quibus verò Volva Horizonti perpetuo inhæret, ijs eminus montis igniti speciem exhibet. Atque hæc de apparentijs in LEVANIAE hemisphærio utroque tàm Subvolvano, quàm Privolvano. Ex quibus non est difficile vel me tacente, judicare, quantum in cæteris conditionibus Subvolvæ à Privolvis differant. Nox enim Subvolvarum etsi nostratia quatuordecim Νυχθήμερα longa sit, Volvæ tamen præsentia terras illustrat, et à frigore custodit. Tanta quippe moles, tantus splendor, non potest non calefacere. Vicissim etsi dies apud Subvolvas molestam habeat Solis præsentiam per nostra 15. vel 16. Νυχθήμερα; Sol tamen minor, non adeò infestis est viribus, et Luminaria juncta, proliciunt aquas omnes in illud Hemisphærium, terris obrutis, ut planè parum de ijs extet, arente contrà et frigente Hemisphærio Privolvano, quippe subtractis omnibus aquis. Nocte autem subeunte apud Subvolvas, die apud Privolvas, cùm Hemisphæria inter se divisa habeant luminaria; dividantur et aquæ, et Subvolvis quidem nudantur agri, Privolvis verò in exiguum solatium æstus, suppeditatur humor. Hucusque cum pervenissem somniando; ventus ortus cum strepitu pluviæ, somnum mihi dissolvit, unaque libri Francofurti allati extrema abolevit. Ipse itaque relictis, Dæmone narrante, et auditoribus, Duracoto filio cum matre Fiolxhildi, ut erant obvolutis capitibus, ad me reversus, verè caput pulvnari, corpus stragulis obvolutum deprehendi.

In the year 1608 a quarrel was raging between two brothers, the emperor Rudolf and the archduke Matthias. People commonly compared their actions to examples from Bohemian history. Caught up in the public curiosity, I set my mind to reading Bohemian tales. I came upon the story of the heroine Libussa, who was famous for her magic art. One night, after watching the stars and the Moon, I went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. In my sleep I seemed to be reading a book brought from the fair. This is what it said. My name is Duracotus. My homeland is Iceland, which the ancients called Thule. My mother was Fiolxhilde. Her recent death has set me free to write, as I have long burned to do. While she lived, she took great care that I should not write. She said there are many dangerous people who hate the arts. What they are too dull to understand, they slander, and they make laws that harm the human race. Under those laws, not a few people have been condemned and swallowed up in the chasms of Hekla. She never told me my father’s name. She said he was a fisherman and died an old man of a hundred and fifty, when I was in my third year. He had been married for about seventy years. When I was small, my mother often took me up the lower slopes of Mount Hekla, leading me by the hand and sometimes carrying me on her shoulders. She went especially around the feast of Saint John, when the Sun can be seen for all twenty-four hours and leaves no room for night. She gathered certain herbs with many ceremonies and cooked them at home. Then she made little bags of goatskin, blew them up, and took them to the nearby port to sell to ship captains. That was how she made her living. Once, out of curiosity, I cut open a bag that my mother was selling without knowing it. I unfolded the herbs and the linen cloths inside, which were embroidered with various characters. So I cheated her of this small profit. My mother flared up in anger. She gave me to the ship’s master as his own, in place of the bag, so that she could keep the money. The next day he set sail unexpectedly with a fair wind, heading, it seemed, for Bergen in Norway. After some days a north wind rose and drove him between Norway and England. He made for Denmark and crossed the strait. He had letters from the bishop of Iceland for Tycho Brahe the Dane, who lived on the island of Hven. I was violently sick from the tossing and from the air, warmer than I was used to, for I was a boy of fourteen. So when the ship came to shore, he left me with a fisherman of the island, along with the letters. He promised to come back and sailed away. Brahe was delighted with the letters and began to ask me many questions. I did not know the language and understood only a few words. So he told his students, whom he kept in great numbers, to talk with me often. Thanks to Brahe’s generosity and a few weeks’ practice, I came to speak Danish fairly well. I was as ready to tell as they were to ask. I marveled at many strange things, and they marveled at the news I told them of my homeland. At last the ship’s master came back and asked for me, but he was turned away, to my great joy. The work of astronomy pleased me wonderfully. Brahe and his students spent whole nights watching the Moon and the stars with wonderful instruments. This reminded me of my mother, for she, too, used to talk with the Moon all the time. In this way I, half a barbarian by birth and very poor, came to know the most divine of sciences. It opened the way for me to greater things. After some years on this island, I began to long to see my homeland again. I thought that with the knowledge I had gained, it would not be hard to rise to some high place among my rough people. So I said goodbye to my patron, got his leave to go, and came to Hafnia [Copenhagen]. There I found traveling companions, who gladly took me under their protection because I knew the language and the country. I came home in the fifth year after I had left. The first happiness of my return was to find my mother still alive and doing the same things as before. She had long regretted that her rashness had cost her a son, and I ended her regret by coming home alive and honored. The year was turning toward autumn, and our long nights were coming on. In the month of Christ’s birth, the Sun barely rises at noon before it sets again. Free from her work in this slack season, my mother clung to me. Wherever I went with my letters of recommendation, she did not leave my side. She asked me now about the lands I had visited, now about the heavens. She was overjoyed that I had learned that science. She compared what she herself had discovered with what I told her. She cried out that she was ready to die now, for she would leave her son heir to her knowledge, the only thing she owned. I am curious by nature and eager to learn new things. So I asked her in turn about her arts, and who had taught them to her among a people so cut off from the rest. Then one day she took time to talk and went over the whole thing from the beginning, more or less like this. “Duracotus, my son, it is not only the other countries you have visited that are well provided for, but our homeland too. We are pressed by cold and darkness and other hardships. I feel them only now that you have told me how happy other countries are. Yet we have clever minds in plenty. We have the wisest spirits at our service. They hate the bright light of other countries and the noise of people, so they seek out our shadows and talk with us as friends. Nine of them are chief. One of these I know especially well. He is the gentlest and most harmless of all, and he is called up by twenty-one characters. With his help I am often carried in an instant to other shores that I name. If some are so far away that I shrink from going, I learn as much by asking about them as if I were there. He has told me most of what you saw with your own eyes, heard from others, or read in books, just as you have told me. Above all, I would like you to come with me and see the region he has told me about so often, for the things he tells of it are truly wonderful.” The region is called Levania. I agreed at once that she should call her master. I sat down, ready to hear all about the journey and a description of the region. It was spring. The Moon was a waxing crescent. As soon as the Sun had set below the horizon, it began to shine, in conjunction with the planet Saturn in the sign of Taurus. My mother went off by herself to the nearest crossroads. She raised her voice and spoke a few words, making her request, and performed some ceremonies. Then she came back, held out the palm of her right hand to command silence, and sat down next to me. We had barely wrapped our heads in our clothes, as agreed, when there came the sound of a throat being cleared, in a dull, lisping voice. At once it began speaking, like this, but in Icelandic. Fifty thousand German miles up in the depths of the ether lies the island of Levania. The road to it from here, or from there to these lands, is very rarely open. When it is open, the trip is easy for our kind. But for carrying humans it is extremely hard, and it puts their lives in the greatest danger. We take no one into our company who sits still all day, and no one fat or soft. We choose people who spend their lives riding post-horses, or who often sail to the Indies, living on ship’s biscuit, garlic, dried fish, and other unpleasant food. Dried-up old women suit us best. Since childhood they have practiced riding by night on goats, pitchforks, or worn-out cloaks, and crossing huge stretches of land. No men from Germany are fit for it, but we do not turn down the dry bodies of Spaniards. The whole journey, long as it is, takes four hours at most. We are always very busy, so the time to leave is not settled until the Moon has begun to be eclipsed on its eastern side. If it shines out whole again while we are still on the way, our trip is ruined. The chance comes and goes so quickly that we take few humans as companions, and only those who show us great respect. We fall on such a man as a troop, and all of us push from below and lift him up high. The first heave is the hardest for him. He is wrenched just as if he had been blasted by gunpowder over mountains and seas. So he must be put to sleep with narcotics and opiates right at the start. His limbs must be arranged so that his body is not torn from his buttocks or his head from his body, but the force is spread among all his limbs. Then a new difficulty comes: terrible cold, and breathing cut off. We fight the cold with a power that is born in us, and the breathing with damp sponges held to the nostrils. When the first part of the journey is done, the carrying gets easier. Then we leave the bodies out in the open air and take our hands away. They roll themselves up into balls, like spiders, and we carry them almost by our will alone. In the end the mass of the body moves of its own accord toward the place we intend. But this pull, this rhopē, is too slow to be much use to us. So, as I said, we speed it up by our will, and we go on ahead of the body, so that it is not harmed by striking the Moon too hard. When people wake up, they usually complain of an indescribable weariness in all their limbs. It takes them a long time to recover enough to walk. Many other difficulties come up, which would take too long to list. Nothing bad at all happens to us. We live crowded together in the darkness of the earth’s shadow, all along its length. When it reaches Levania, we are there at once, as if stepping off a ship onto land. There we hurry into caves and dark places. Otherwise the Sun would soon catch us in the open, drive us out of the lodging we have chosen, and force us to follow the departing shadow. There we have a break, and we can use our minds as we please. We talk with the daemons of that land and make an alliance with them. As soon as a place begins to lose the Sun, we join our troops and march out into the shadow. If its point strikes the earth, as usually happens, we too fall on the earth with our allied armies. We are allowed to do this only when people see the Sun eclipsed. That is why eclipses of the Sun are so feared. So much for the journey to Levania. Next I shall describe the land itself. Like the geographers, I shall begin with what comes to it from the sky. All of Levania sees the fixed stars just as we do. But the motions and sizes of the planets it sees are very different from what we see here. So their whole astronomy is entirely different. Our geographers divide the earth into five zones according to what happens in the sky. In the same way, Levania is made up of two hemispheres, one of the Subvolvans and the other of the Privolvans. The first always enjoys its Volva, which takes the place of our Moon for them. The second is forever deprived of the sight of Volva. The circle that divides the hemispheres passes through the poles of the world, like our solstitial colure, and is called the Divider. First I shall explain what the two hemispheres have in common. So all of Levania has day and night in turn, as we do. But they lack our changes through the year. All over Levania the days are almost equal to the nights. The only exception is that for the Privolvans every day is regularly shorter than its night, and for the Subvolvans longer. What changes over a cycle of eight years will be told below. At each of the poles, to make up for the night, the Sun is half hidden and half shining as it circles around the mountains. For Levania seems to its people to stand still while the stars move, just as our earth seems to us humans. A night and a day together equal one of our months. When the Sun is about to rise, almost a whole sign of the zodiac more appears on one day than on the day before. For us, in one year the Sun goes around 365 times and the sphere of the fixed stars 366 times. More exactly, in four years the Sun goes around 1,461 times and the fixed stars 1,465 times. For them, in one year the Sun goes around twelve times and the sphere of the fixed stars thirteen times. More exactly, in eight years the Sun goes around 99 times and the fixed stars 107 times. But they know a cycle of nineteen years better. In that many years the Sun rises 235 times, and the fixed stars 254 times. Taking each hemisphere on its own, there is great difference between them. The presence or absence of Volva makes their sights very unlike. But even the things they share have very different effects on each side. So the Privolvan hemisphere might better be called intemperate, and the Subvolvan temperate. Among the Privolvans, night lasts fifteen or sixteen of our days. It is rough with endless darkness, like our moonless nights, for not even a ray of Volva ever lights it. So everything is stiff with frost and ice, and on top of that there are harsh and violent winds. Then comes the day, fourteen of our days long or a little less. The Sun is larger and moves slowly against the fixed stars, and there are no winds. So the heat is immense. In the space of one of our months, which is one day on Levania, the same place has heat fifteen times fiercer than our Africa, and cold harder to bear than Quivira’s. Turning to this hemisphere, I begin with those on its border, who live on the Divider. What is special to them is that they see Venus and Mercury stray much farther from the Sun than we do. At certain times Venus also looks twice as large to them as it does to us, especially to those who live under the north pole. But the most delightful sight in Levania is their Volva. They enjoy the sight of it to make up for our Moon, which they and the Privolvans lack altogether. This region is called Subvolvan because Volva is always present there. The rest is called the land of the Privolvans because Volva is absent and they are deprived of the sight of it. For us who live on the earth, our full Moon, as it rises and comes up over distant houses, seems as big as the hoop of a barrel. When it has climbed to the middle of the sky, it is barely as wide as a human face. But the Subvolvans see their Volva in the very middle of the sky, where it stands for those who live at the center, or navel, of this hemisphere. To them its diameter looks a little less than four times as long as our Moon’s does to us. So if you compare the discs, their Volva is fifteen times larger than our Moon. For those who have Volva always resting on the horizon, it looks from far off like a mountain on fire. So much for what is seen in both hemispheres of Levania, the Subvolvan and the Privolvan. From this it is not hard to judge, even if I say nothing, how much the Subvolvans differ from the Privolvans in other ways too. The Subvolvan night lasts fourteen of our days and nights. Yet Volva’s presence lights up their lands and protects them from the cold. So great a mass, so great a brightness, cannot help giving off warmth. On the other hand, the Subvolvan day brings the troublesome presence of the Sun for fifteen or sixteen of our days and nights. Yet the Sun is smaller and less fierce. And the two great lights, joined together, draw all the waters into that hemisphere. The land is flooded, so that very little of it stands out, while the Privolvan hemisphere, robbed of all its waters, is dry and cold. When night comes to the Subvolvans and day to the Privolvans, the hemispheres divide the two lights between them. Then the waters are divided too. The Subvolvans’ fields are laid bare, and the Privolvans get some moisture as a small relief from the heat. When I had dreamed this far, a wind rose with the sound of rain and broke off my sleep. With it went the last part of the book brought from Frankfurt. So I left the daemon still talking, and his listeners, Duracotus and his mother Fiolxhilde, with their heads still wrapped up. I came back to myself and found that in truth my head was on a pillow and my body wrapped in blankets.