And Therefore They Take Great Hire And Great
Thank.
And there be certain men in every town that serve of none
other thing; and they clepe them cadeberiz, that is to say, the
fools of wanhope.
For they of the country hold it so great a thing
and so perilous for to have the maidenhead of a woman, that them
seemeth that they that have first the maidenhead putteth him in
adventure of his life. And if the husband find his wife maiden
that other next night after that she should have been lain by of
the man that is assigned therefore, peradventure for drunkenness or
for some other cause, the husband shall plain upon him that he hath
not done his devoir, in such cruel wise as though the officers
would have slain him. But after the first night that they be lain
by, they keep them so straitly that they be not so hardy to speak
with no man. And I asked them the cause why that they held such
custom: and they said me, that of old time men had been dead for
deflowering of maidens, that had serpents in their bodies that
stung men upon their yards, that they died anon: and therefore
they held that customs to make other men ordained therefore to lie
by their wives, for dread of death, and to assay the passage by
another [rather] than for to put them in that adventure.
After that is another isle where that women make great sorrow when
their children be y-born.
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