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 244 HISTORY OF THE FRANKS 23. In this year there was such a light shed over the earth in the night that one would think it mid-day ; moreover balls of fire were frequently noticed at night speeding across the sky and Hght- ing the world. There was doubt about Easter for the reason that Victor wrote in his cycle that Easter came on the fifteenth day of the moon. But to prevent Christians from celebrating this festi- val at the same time of the moon as the Jews, he added : ''But the Latins [place it] on the twenty-second of the moon." For this reason many in Gaul celebrated on the fifteenth of the moon but we celebrated on the twenty-second. We made careful inquiry but the springs in Spain which are filled by a divine power were filled at our Easter. There was a great earthquake on the eighteenth day before the Kalends ^ of the fifth month, being the fourth day [of the week], early in the morning when dawn was coming. The sun was eclipsed in the middle of the eighth month and its light was so diminished that it scarcely gave as much Hght as the horns of the moon on the fifth day. There were heavy rains, loud thunders in the autumn and the streams were very full. The bubonic plague cruelly de- stroyed the people of Viviers and Avignon. [24. An Armenian bishop visits Tours and tells the story of the destruction of Antioch.] 25. Now in the Gauls the disease I have mentioned attacked the province of Marseilles, and a great famine oppressed Angers, Nantes, and Mans. These are the beginning of sorrows according to what the Lord says in the Gospel: ''There shall be pestilence and famines and earthquakes in different places and false Christs and false prophets shall arise and give signs and prodigies in the heavens so as to put the elect astray:" as is true at the present time. For a certain man of Bourges, as he himself told later, went into the deep woods to cut logs which he needed for a certain work and a swarm of flies surrounded him, as a result of which he was considered crazy for two years; whence it may be believed that they were a wickedness sent by the devil. Then he passed through the neighboring cities and went to the province of Aries and there wore skins and prayed like one of the devout, and to make a fool of him the enemy gave him the power of divination. ^ June 14,