98 THE KING'S MIRROR 



shall explain this so clearly that you will understand it 

 fully. 



You know that here with us in winter the day and the 

 course of the sun are brief; for so short is the sun's path 

 that it passes through but a single region of the sky, and 

 then only where the sun has considerable strength. But 

 in many places the sun is not to be seen during a large 

 part of winter, for example in Halogaland,* as we 

 have not only heard tell but have often and constantly 

 learned and observed with our own eyes. For we know 

 definitely that from about November 10 to January 10 

 there never comes a day so bright up north in Vaag or 

 at Andenes | in Halogaland but that the stars in the 

 sky are visible at midday as at midnight. And although 

 the days have so much light that the stars cannot be 

 seen, nevertheless, in most of the places that we have 

 mentioned the sun remains invisible till January 23. 

 But after that date the days lengthen and the sun 

 mounts so rapidly, that beginning with April 6 day- 

 light does not disappear before September 17, all the in- 

 tervening time being one continuous day, for daylight 

 never fails in all that while. From this you may safely 

 conclude that, though the sun is hotter in the southern 

 lands that we spoke of earlier, its course waxes and 

 mounts more slowly where the night, even at mid-sum- 

 mer, is deep and long and dark, and where tnere is never 

 a time in the whole twelvemonth when day does not fail. 

 But in Halogaland, as I have just said, there is no day 



* Halogaland, the modern Nordland, is that part of Norway lying north of 

 the sixty-fifth parallel. 



t Vaag and Andenes are points in the Lofoten Islands; their latitudes are 68 

 12' 35" and 69 18' 50" respectively. 



