cartloads of boughs fell to the earth with a great crash, and covered all
the road by which his Majesty was to come. Hereupon the boy would stop no
longer in the tree, however much I exhorted him thereto, but cried out to
us as he came down that a great troop of soldiers was marching out of the
forest by Damerow, and that likely enough the king was among them.
Hereupon the Sheriff ordered the road to be cleared forthwith, and this
was some time a-doing, seeing that the thick boughs were stuck fast in the
trees all around; the nobles, as soon as all was made ready, would have
ridden to meet his Majesty, but stayed still on the little green sward,
because we already heard the noise of horses, carriages, and voices close
to us in the forest.

It was not long before the cannons broke through the brushwood with the
three guides seated upon them. And seeing that one of them was known to me
(it was Stoffer Krauthahn of Peenemuende), I drew near and begged him that
he would tell me when the king should come. But he answered that he was
going forward with the cannon to Coserow, and that I was only to watch for
a tall dark man, with a hat and feather and a gold chain round his neck,
for that that was the king, and that he rode next after the great standard
whereon was a yellow lion.

Wherefore I narrowly watched the procession as it wound out of the forest.
And next after the artillery came the Finnish and Lapland bowmen, who went
clothed all in furs, although it was now the height of summer, whereat I
greatly wondered. After these there came much people, but I know not what
they were. Presently I espied over the hazel-tree which stood in my way so
that I could not see everything as soon as it came forth out of the
coppice, the great flag with the lion on it, and behind that the head of a
very dark man with a golden chain round his neck, whereupon straightway I
judged this must be the king. I therefore waved my napkin toward the