THE TRUE STATE OF ICELAND a.d. 



1592. 

 sustaine, and with cruell mercy to have cast them into 

 Danubius, and drowned them. But should these stories 

 and the like make any man so mad as to affirme that 

 this or that nation accustometh to kill their children for 

 their owne food, and to sell them willingly unto the 

 Turks, or to drowne and strangle them willingly in 

 the water ? I cannot thinke it. So neither (because 

 beggers in Island being enforced through extreame and 

 biting necessitie, do willingly part with their sonnes) is 

 this custome generally to be imputed unto the whole 

 nation, and that by way of disgrace, by any man, except 

 it be such an one who hath taken his leave of all modesty, 

 plaine dealing, humanity, and trueth. 



But I could wish that the love of dogges in Islanders 

 might be more sparingly reprehended by those people, 

 whose matrons, and specially their noble women, take 

 so great delight in dogs, that they carry them in their 

 bosomes thorow the open streetes : I will not say in 

 Churches : which fashion Caesar blamed in certaine 

 strangers, whom he saw at Rome carrying about yoong 

 apes and whelpes in their armes, asking them this 

 question : Whether women in their countrey brought 

 foorth children or no ? signifying heereby, that they do 

 greatly offend, who bestow upon beasts these naturall [I. 584.] 

 affections, wherewith they should be invited to the love 

 of mankinde, and specially of their owne ofspring : which 

 strange pleasure never overtooke, nor possessed the 

 nation of the Islanders. Wherefore now (Munster and 

 Krantzius) you must finde us out other marks of 

 Christianity, of the law of nature, of the Germans law, 

 and of holy simplicity. 



[The eight 

 IV 177 M 



