ABSTRACT
I have now related the ways of the men of Finnmark and the harshness of their climate and soil, exposed to whose conditions incredible numbers of men have been nurtured and spread over the whole world, though more in days of old than in our times. I should particularly like to follow on with a story which is universally known (which Paul the Deacon, too, at the beginning of his History of the Lombards, mentions as a miracle) and to affirm my belief in it. 1 On the farthest bounds of north-west Germany, by the very shore of the Ocean, a cave is to be sighted, beneath a jutting rock, where seven men have been lying sunk in a protracted sleep, though it is doubtful for how long. Their bodies, and their clothing too, are so unscathed, according to the affirmation of the same author, that they are held in veneration among those same ignorant and barbarous nations, because they have lasted without corruption of any kind through the course of so many years. In fact, these men, on the evidence of their clothes, are understood to be Romans. While a man, impelled by inquisitive greed, was trying to strip one of them, his arms, it is said, quickly withered, and his punishment so thoroughly frightened others that no one dared to touch them any more. Thus it is evident to what end Providence has preserved them through so many ages. Perhaps it is by the preaching of these men (for they are thought to be none other than Christians) that those peoples are one day to be saved. 1
Unbelievable numbers of men of the North
The seven sleepers
The punishment of the inquisitive
