ABSTRACT
WHAT the ancient writers on Gothic affairs observed in their own age about the aspects of the stars in the extreme North, about the tribes and their customs, I shall set out in a few words. Jordanes affirms at the beginning of his histories that there lives a people in the far North which is said to have continuous light for forty days and nights in the middle of summer, and also that in the winter season, for the same length of time, they are unacquainted with any distinct light. So joy and woe come alternately; benefit and disadvantage are bestowed unequally on them in comparison with others, for during the longer days they see the sun travelling back towards the east along the rim of the sky, but in the shorter days they observe it in quite a different way; the sun then passes through the southern signs and, whereas we see it rise from below the horizon, it is reckoned to circle those people along the edge of the earth.
Jordanes
Days continuous in summer, nights in winter
