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Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio Δ

Tales of a comic hero who travels to a distant place seeking magic show up in virtually every folklore in virtually every culture. Though several folios of the manuscript that may have narrated Aethon’s journey to Thessaly are lost, it’s evident that by Folio Δ, he has arrived. Translation by Zeno Ninis.

… eager to find evidence of sorcery, I headed straight for the town square. Were the doves on that awning wizards in feathered disguise? Would centaurs stride between the market stalls and deliver speeches? I stopped three maids carrying baskets and asked where I might find a powerful witch who could turn me into a bird: a brave eagle, possibly, or a bright strong owl.

One said, “Well, Canidia here, she can extract sunbeams from melons, turn stones into boars, and pluck stars from the sky, but she can’t make you an owl.” The other two tittered.

She continued, “And, Meroë here, she can stop rivers from running, turn mountains to dust, and rip the gods from their thrones, but she can’t make you an eagle either,” and all three of their bodies split with laughter.

Undeterred, I went to the inn. After dark, Palaestra, the innkeeper’s maid, called me into the kitchen. She whispered that the wife of the innkeeper kept a bedchamber at the top of the house stocked with all sorts of equipment for the practice of magic, bird claws and fish hearts and even bits of corpse flesh. “At midnight,” she said, “if you crouch at the keyhole outside the door of that room, you might find what you seek…”