ame
place David, when he was a child, fed sheep and kept them from the bear
and the lion.

Some books say that the shepherds in that country, twice in the year,
are wont to keep their sheep in the night, and, therein, times be when
the day and the night are both of one length. And you shall understand
that the land about Bethlehem is all mountainous for the most part, so
that in some places a man shall not well know winter from summer, and in
some places it is right cold, and some it is both winter and summer at
one time, and sometimes on the mountains, in parts of the East, men
shall find snow in the month of August, and that snow is gathered by
them that dwell about, and put in caves, and afterward it is borne to
the market, where the great lords of the country will buy it, and take
it to their houses, and set it in a basin upon their board to make their
drink cold.

In September and October, when the sun cometh a little low in that
country, then seeds and all manner of herbs commonly begin to wax in the
fields, as in this country herbs begin to grow in March and April; also
in some parts of the East they reap corn in April and in March, but most
in May, as in some places the ground is higher, in some places lower;
but beside Bethlehem are many more places of good pasture and of flat
ground than elsewhere: insomuch that at Christmas-tide barley beginneth
to ear and to wax ripe; and then men send thither, from divers
countries, their horses and mules, to make them fat: and that time we
call among us Christmas, they call, in their language, the time of
herbage. And forasmuch as when Christ was born, peace was in all the
world, and betwixt Bethlehem and that place where the angel appeared to
the shepherds was but half a mile and a little way more, and also there
was no great cold thereabout, therefore the shepherds, all that winter
night and day, now in one place, now in another, dwelled there with
their sheep, and so they do yet to this day.

Now when Christ was born of the Virgin Mary for salvation of all
mankind, then His Star, that was prophesied of Balaam and long awaited
and looked for by the twelve astronomers on the hill of Vaws, at that
same night and at that same hour, began to arise in the manner of a sun,
bright shining; and so after, in the form of an eagle, it ascended above
the hill of Vaws. And all that day in highest air it abode without
moving, insomuch that when the sun was most hot and most high th