Denmark

And of Scīringes hēale hē cwæð ðæt hē seglode on fīf dagan tō þǣm porte þe mǫn hæt/ æt Hæþum; se stęnt betuh Winedum, and Seaxum, and Angle, and hȳrð inn on Dęne.

And from Sciringes heal, he said, he sailed in five days to the port that is called Haethum. It stands between the Wends, the Saxons and the Angles, and belongs to Denmark.

Ðā hē þiderweard seglode fram Scīringeshēale, þā wæs him on þæt bæcbord Dęnamearc and on þæt stēorbord wīdsǽ þrȳ dagas; and þā, twēgen dagas ǣr hē tō Hæþum cōme, him wæs on þæt stēorbord Gotland, and Sillęnde, and īglanda fela.

When he sailed that way from Sciringes heal, he had Denmark on his port side and open sea on his starboard side for three days. And then, two days before he arrived at Haethum, he had, on his starboard side, Gotland and Sillende and many islands.

And hym wæs ðā twēgen dagas on ðæt bæcbord ðā īgland þe inn on Dęnemearce hȳrað.

And he had, for those two days, on his port side the islands that belong to Denmark.

Weonoðland him wæs on stēorbord, and on bæcbord him wæs Langaland, and Lǽland, and Falster, and Scónēg; and þās land eall hȳrað tō Dęnemearcan.

Weonodland was on his starboard side, and on his port side were Langaland, Læland, Falster and Sconeg; and all those lands are part of Denmark.

Her on þyssum geare wæs se mycla hungor geond Angel cynn swilce nan man ǽr ne ge munde swa grimne. and se flota þæs geares ge wende of þissum earde to Dænemearcon. and litelne fyrst let þet he eft ne com.

In this year there was the great famine across England, so grim that no one remembered one like it. And that year the [Danish] fleet went home from this country to Denmark, but it was not long before it came back.

E l’Affrica nelle marine, e nelle sue provincie di verso levante, e le rive del nostro Mare tirreno. E venendo di tempo in tempo verso il ponente, comprese la Sardigna, e la Corsica, e l’altre isole di questo mare; e dall’altra parte, ch’è detta Europa, per simigliante modo aggiunse alle parti vicine verso il ponente, volgendosi verso il mezzogiorno con più aspro assalimento che sotto le parti settentrionali. E negli anni di Cristo 1348 ebbe infetta tutta Italia, salvo che la città di Milano, e certi circustanti all’Alpi, che dividono l’Italia dall’Alamagna, ove gravò poco. E in questo medesimo anno cominciò a passare le montagne, e stendersi in Proenza, e in Savoia, e nel Dalfinato, e in Borgogna, e per la marina di Marsilia e d’Acquamorta, e per la Catalogna, e nell’isola di Maiolica, e in Ispagna e in Granata. E nel 1349 ebbe compreso fino nel ponente, le rive del Mare oceano, d’Europa e d’Affrica e d’Irlanda, e l’isola d’Inghilterra e di Scozia, e l’altre isole di ponente, e tutto infra terra con quasi eguale mortalità salvo in Brabante ove poco offese. E nel 1350 premette gli Alamanni, e gli Ungheri, Frigia, Danesmarche, Gotti, e Vandali, e gli altri popoli e nazioni settentrionali.

It took in the coasts of Africa and its eastern lands, and the shores of our Tyrrhenian Sea. Moving westward over time, it took in Sardinia, Corsica, and the other islands of this sea. On the other side, called Europe, it reached the nearby lands to the west in the same way, striking the south more fiercely than the north. In the year of Christ 1348 it had infected all Italy except the city of Milan and some places near the Alps, which divide Italy from Germany; there it weighed lightly. That same year it began to cross the mountains and spread into Provence, Savoy, the Dauphiné, and Burgundy, along the coast at Marseille and Aigues-Mortes, and into Catalonia, the island of Majorca, Spain, and Granada. By 1349 it had reached the shores of the Ocean in the far west, in Europe, Africa, and Ireland, the islands of England and Scotland, and the other western islands. Inland, too, the mortality was almost equal everywhere, except in Brabant, where it did little harm. In 1350 it bore down on the Germans, the Hungarians, Frisia, Denmark, the Goths and Vandals, and the other peoples and nations of the north.

Cùm aliquando per curiositatem rescisso sacculo, quem mater ignara vendebat, herbisque et linteis, quæ acu picta, varios præferebant characteres, explicatis, ipsam hoc lucello fraudassem: mater irâ succensa, me loco sacculi Nauclero proprium addixit, ut ipsa pecuniam retineret. Atque is postridiè ex insperato solvens è portu, secundo vento quasi Bergas Nordwegiæ tendebat. Post aliquot dies Boreâ surgente, inter Nordwegiam et Angliam delatus, Daniam petijt, fretumque emensus, cùm haberet literas Episcopi Islandici, tradendas Tychoni Brahe Dano; qui in Insula Wena habitabat, ego verò vehementer ægrotarem ex jactatione et auræ tepore insueto, quippè quatuordecim aunorum adolescens; navi ad littus appulsa me apud piscatorem insulanum exposuit cum literis; et spe reditus factâ, solvit.

Once, out of curiosity, I cut open a bag that my mother was selling without knowing it. I unfolded the herbs and the linen cloths inside, which were embroidered with various characters. So I cheated her of this small profit. My mother flared up in anger. She gave me to the ship’s master as his own, in place of the bag, so that she could keep the money. The next day he set sail unexpectedly with a fair wind, heading, it seemed, for Bergen in Norway. After some days a north wind rose and drove him between Norway and England. He made for Denmark and crossed the strait. He had letters from the bishop of Iceland for Tycho Brahe the Dane, who lived on the island of Hven. I was violently sick from the tossing and from the air, warmer than I was used to, for I was a boy of fourteen. So when the ship came to shore, he left me with a fisherman of the island, along with the letters. He promised to come back and sailed away.