slide over the frozen snow, being made of broad planks extremely smooth; the Northern People call them _Skider_, and by contraction _Skier_ (which agrees something with the _Germans_ _Scheitter_, that is, cleft wood) and sometimes _Andrer_ or _Ondrur_ or _Skiidh_. Their shape is, according to _Olaus Magnus_, five or six ells long, turned up before, and a foot broad: which I cannot believe, because I have a pair which are a little broader, and much shorter, and _Wormius_ had a pair but of three ells long. And those are much shorter which are to be seen at _Leiden_, which _Frisius_ saies are just seven foot long, four inches and a little more broad: and it must needs be so to hold with _Olaus Magnus_, and every bodies opinion, that one shoe must be longer than the other by a foot, as if the man or woman be eight foot high, one must be eight foot, and the other nine. _Frisius_ saies they are both of a length at _Leiden_, and _Olaus Wormius_ takes no notice of any difference in his, but I believe then those were of two Parishes, for my biggest is just such an one as _Frisius_ describes covered over with resin or pitch, and the shorter plain. But because the larger is of greatest use, it is no wonder that one or two of them were sent abroad for a pattern, but since those at _Leiden_ are both the biggest, they were not made for men so tall as _Frisius_ speaks of, they fitting men of six foot, which is a stature sometimes met with in _Lapland_. They are smooth and turned up before, not behind, as they are pictured in _Wormius_, not by the fault of the Author, but the Painter, for the original in his study shews them otherwise; I have observed in my longer shoe that it is not quite strait, but swells up a little in the middle where they place their foot. _Frisius_ did ill in giving a picture but of one, and in that nothing of this bending, I will therefore describe both, and a _Laplander_ sliding in them. [Illustration]