nly
fear Him who has created both us and this star. But, as this phenomenon
may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning from heaven."'
Accordingly, Louis himself and all his court fasted and prayed, and he
built churches and monasteries. But all was of no avail. In little more
than three years he died; showing, as the historian Raoul Glaber
remarked, that 'these phenomena of the universe are never presented to
man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible event.' With a
range of three years in advance, and so many kings and princes as there
were about in those days, and are still, it would be rather difficult
for a comet to appear without announcing some such wonderful and
terrible event as a royal death.

The year 1000 A.D. was by all but common consent regarded as the date
assigned for the end of the world. For a thousand years Satan had been
chained, and now he was to be loosened for a while. So that when a comet
made its appearance, and, terrible to relate, continued visible for nine
days, the phenomenon was regarded as something more than a nine days'
wonder. Besides the comet, a very wonderful meteor was seen. 'The
heavens opened, and a kind of flaming torch fell upon the earth, leaving
behind a long track of light like the path of a flash of lightning. Its
brightness was so great that it frightened not only those who were in
the fields, but even those who were in their houses. As this opening in
the sky slowly closed men saw with horror the figure of a dragon, whose
feet were blue, and whose head' [like that of Dickens's dwarf] 'seemed
to grow larger and larger.' A picture of this dreadful meteor
accompanies the account given by the old chronicler. For fear the exact
likeness of the dragon might not be recognised (and, indeed, to see it
one must 'make believe a good deal'), there is placed beside it a
picture of a dragon to correspond, which picture is in turn labelled
'Serpens cum ceruleis pedibus.' It was considered very wicked in the
year 1000 to doubt that the end of all things was at hand. But somehow
the world escaped that time.

In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the
approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary
poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical
meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said
that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been
to Caesa