pplied as a poultice to a woman in
travail that the pains of childbirth would be softened.

Even the venerable patron saint of Penguinia did not escape his rigid
criticism. This is what he says of her in his "Antiquities of Alca":

"Nothing is more uncertain than the history, or even the existence, of
St. Orberosia. An ancient anonymous annalist, a monk of Dombes, relates
that a woman called Orberosia was possessed by the devil in a cavern
where, even down to his own days, the little boys and girls of the
village used to play at a sort of game representing the devil and
the fair Orberosia. He adds that this woman became the concubine of a
horrible dragon, who ravaged the country. Such a statement is hardly
credible, but the history of Orberosia, as it has since been related,
seems hardly more worthy of belief. The life of that saint by the Abbot
Simplicissimus is three hundred years later than the pretended events
which it relates and that author shows himself excessively credulous and
devoid of all critical faculty."

Suspicion attacked even the supernatural origin of the Penguins. The
historian Ovidius Capito went so far as to deny the miracle of their
transformation. He thus begins his "Annals of Penguinia":

"A dense obscurity envelopes this history, and it would be no
exaggeration to say that it is a tissue of puerile fables and popular
tales. The Penguins claim that they are descended from birds who were
baptized by St. Mael and whom God changed into men at the intercession
of that glorious apostle. They hold that, situated at first in the
frozen ocean, their island, floating like Delos, was brought to anchor
in these heaven-favoured seas, of which it is to-day the queen. I
conclude that this myth is a reminiscence of the ancient migrations of
the Penguins."

In the following century, which was that of the philosophers, scepticism
became still more acute. No further evidence of it is needed than the
following celebrated passage from the "Moral Essay":

"Arriving we know not from whence (for indeed their origins are not very
clear), and successively invaded and conquered by four or five peoples
from the north, south, east, and west, miscegenated, interbred,
amalgamated, and commingled, the Penguins boast of the purity of their
race, and with justice, for they have become a pure race. This mixture
of all mankind, red, black, yellow, and white, round-headed and
long-headed, as formed in the course of ages a fai