and the children wax whitehaired anon as they be born. There be satyrs
and other men wondrously shapen. Also in the end of East India, about
the rising of Ganges, be men without mouths, and they be clothed in
moss and in rough hairy things, which they gather off trees, and live
commonly by odour and smell at the nostrils. And they nother eat
nother drink, but only smell odour of flowers and of wood apples, and
live so, and they die anon in evil odour and smell. And other there be
that live full long, and age never, but die as it were in middle age.
Also some be hoar in youth, and black in age. Pliny rehearseth these
wonders, and many other mo.

Yrlonde hight Hibernia, and is an island of the Ocean in Europe, and
is nigh to the land of Britain, and is more narrow and straight than
Britain, but it is more plenteous place.... In this land is much
plenty of corn fields, of wells and of rivers, of fair meads and
woods, of metal and of precious stones. For there is gendered a six
cornered stone, that is to wit, Iris, that maketh a rainbow in the
air, if it be set in the sun. And there is jet found, and white
pearls. And concerning the wholesome air, Ireland is a good temperate
country. There is little or none passing heat or cold; there be
wonderful lakes, ponds, and wells. For there is a lake, in which if a
staff or a pole of tree be pight, and tarrieth long time therein, the
part that is in the earth turneth into iron, and the part that is in
the water turneth into stone, and the part that is above the water,
abideth still in its kind of tree. There is another lake in which in
that thou throwest rods of hazel, it turneth those rods into ash: and
ayenward if ye cast ashen rods therein, they turn into hazel. Therein
be places in which dead carrions never rot: but abide there always
uncorrupt. Also in Ireland is a little island, in which men die not,
but when they be overcome with age, they be borne out of that island