My dear father, you must easily imagine that I could not help embracing with all tenderness so dear and so lovely a woman. In fine, I am married to her, I have lived very happy hitherto, and am now grown more happy, for she is big with child; and likely, before my letter comes to your hands, to make you a grandfather of a pretty boy. You will perhaps wonder that I name the sex of the child before it comes into the world, but we have a way in Lapland of finding that out, which though some judicious people call superstitious, I am really persuaded of by experience, and therefore I indulged my dear wife's curiosity, when she signified to me she had a mind to make the usual trial, whether the child she was going to be delivered of would be a boy or a girl. You must understand, my dear father, the people here judge of the sex of the child by the moon, unto which they compare a big-bellied woman. If they see a star appear just above the moon, it is a sign it will be a boy, but, if the star be just below the moon, they conjecture her to be big with a girl. This observation and remark of Laplanders has, I know, been accounted by some, and those wise and judicious men too, to be ridiculously superstitious; but I have been led into an easy belief of this mystery, by a mistress that is superior to wisdom itself, constant, and therefore probably infallible, experience. I therefore indulged my wife in this her request, and went with her to the ceremony; the star appeared above the moon, which prognosticates a boy, which I wish may, and I scarce doubt will, prove true, and when she is brought to bed I will send you word of it. It is remarkable, likewise, that a star was seen just before the moon, which we also count a very good omen. For it is a custom likewise here in Lapland, to consult the moon, as an oracle about the health and vigour of the child. If a star be seen just before the moon, we count it a sign of a lusty and well grown child, without blemish; if a star comes just after, we reckon it a token that the child will have some defect or deformity, or die soon after it is born.