Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of BritaineHolinshed, Raphael
History
Chronicles (1 of 6): The Description of Britaine
Holinshed, Raphael
Great Britain -- History -- To 1485; Great Britain -- History -- Tudors, 1485-1603
I could rehearse manie mo examples of the bodies of such men, out of
Solinus, Sabellicus, D. Cooper, and others. As of Oetas and Ephialtes,
who were said to be nine orgies or paces in heigth, and foure in
bredth, which are taken for so many cubits, bicause there is small
difference betwéene a mans ordinarie pace and his cubit, and finallie
of our Richard the first, who is noted to beare an axe in the wars,
the iron of whose head onelie weighed twentie pound after our greatest
weight, and whereof an old writer that I haue seene, saith thus:
This king Richard I vnderstand,
Yer he went out of England,
Let make an axe for the nones,
Therewith to cleaue the Saracens bones,
The head in sooth was wrought full weele,
Thereon were twentie pound of steele,
And when he came in Cyprus land,
That ilkon axe he tooke in hand, &c.
I could speake also of Gerards staffe or lance, yet to be seene in
Gerards hall at London in Basing lane, which is so great and long that
no man can beweld it, neither go to the top thereof without a ladder,
which of set purpose and for greater countenance of the wonder is
fixed by the same. I haue seene a man my selfe of seuen foot in
heigth, but lame of his legs. The chronicles also of Cogshall speake
of one in Wales, who was halfe a foot higher, but through infirmitie
and wounds not able to beweld himselfe. I might (if I thought good)
speake also of another of no lesse heigth than either of these and
liuing of late yeares, but these here remembred shall suffice to
prooue my purpose withall. I might tell you in like sort of the marke
stone which Turnus threw at Æneas, and was such as that twelue chosen
and picked men (saith Virgil),
[Sidenote: Vis vnita fortior est eadem dispersa.]
(Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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