20 NOTION OF THE ANCIENTS. 



carcase six times as big as himself, he does not leave off 

 eating as long as there is ' a mouthful left ; he must there- 

 fore be tormented with such insatiable hunger, that even a 

 crammed belly does not abate it. A friend of mine, a man 

 of probity, has assured me from ocular demonstration, that 

 when the glutton is catched alive (which seldom happens) 

 and is chained to a stone wall, his hunger does not decline 

 the stones and mortar ; but he'll eat himself into the wall. 

 The best opportunity of catching him, is, when he, accord- 

 ing to his custom if gorged, presses and squeezes himself 

 between two trees which stand near together. By this 

 practice, he eases and exonerates his stomach, which has not 

 time to digest what he has so voraciously devoured." .... 

 " Perhaps," says the worthy prelate in conclusion, " he is 

 created for a moral picture, or an emblem of those people, 

 of whom the Apostle says : * That their belly is their 

 God.' " 



The accounts of Olaus Magnus, the Archbishop of Upsala, 

 respecting the glutton are not less marvellous. He tells us 

 that when this beast has feasted, his belly becomes distended 

 like the skin of a drum ; that when, by means of squeezing 

 himself between two trees, he has relieved his stomach of 

 its contents, he again returns to the carcase, and thus the 

 process goes on so long as a particle of flesh remains ; that 

 people reposing under coverlids made of glutton skins arc 

 oppressed with fearful dreams they are perishing of 

 famine, as they conceive : but eat what they will, they are 

 unable to satisfy the gnawings of hunger ; that the claws 

 of this beast, worn round the head, are a specific for the 

 vertigo, or drumming in the ear ; that blood mixed with 

 warm water is a beverage for hunters ; that blood with a 



