Page:Anglo-Saxon version of the Hexameron of St. Basil.djvu/40

Rh about ever, with the broad firmament, in the circumference of the earth. And not one of these shall fall from the fast firmament, as long as this world shall thus remain entire. In like manner the sun and truly the moon go round about this earth with an extensive circuit, they go quite as far beneath as above us.

VIII. On the fifth day our Lord created out of water alone all the fishes, in the sea and in the rivers, and all that creepeth in them, and the great whales with their generations; and also all kinds of birds, likewise, from water, and He gave to the birds flight through this air, and to the fishes the power of swimming in the flowing waves. God then blessed them, thus saying to the fishes, "Increase and be multiplied and fill the sea," and also, "Let the birds be increased above the earth," and it then became so. The birds, indeed, that dwell in the waters (floods), are broad-footed, by God's providence, in order that they may swim and seek food for themselves. Some are long-necked, as are swans and ylfets (a kind of swan), that they may reach their food upon the ground. And those (birds) that live by flesh are cloven-footed and sharp-billed, that they may bite with short necks, and (they are) swifter in flight, that they may be fit for the toils of their life. There is not every kind of bird in the country of the English, nor in any land is there hardly every kind of fowl, inasmuch as they are many, great in production, and they fly in different ways, as books say plainly concerning them.

IX. On the sixth day our Lord said, "Let the earth now bring forth living creatures after their generations, and creeping worms, and all sorts of wild beast after their kind." Moreover, then, God made, through His wondrous might, all kinds of creatures after their kind, and the wild beasts that have their dwelling in the woods, and all that is four-footed from the aforesaid earth, and all kinds of worms that are creeping; and the savage lions, which are not here in the land, and the swift tigers, and the wondrous pards, and the terrible bears, and the immense elephants, which are not produced in the country of the English, and many other