---

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Antonius Diogenes, Folio O

… through the gateposts I could glimpse twinkling jewels in the pavements, and what appeared to be a steaming river of broth. Round the towers above, birds flew in rainbow-colored flocks, bright green, purple, crimson. Was I dreaming? Had I really arrived? After so many miles, after so much ·[believing?]· still my heart doubted what my eyes saw.

“Halt, little crow,” said an owl. He rose above me, five times my size, and carried a golden spear in each talon. “For you to pass through the gates, we must make sure you are actually a bird, a noble creature of the air, older than Kronos, than Time itself.”

“Not one of those foul, treacherous humans, made of dust and dirt, wearing a disguise,” said a second owl, even larger than the first.

Behind them, just inside the gates, beneath the hanging plums, almost within reach, a tortoise plodded slowly past with a pillar of honeycakes piled on his back. I leaned forward but the owls bristled their feathers. After crossing half the Milky Way, would the Fates really have me torn to pieces by magnificent beasts such as these?

… stood as tall as I could and ruffled my wings. “I am just a humble crow,” I said, “and I have traveled far.”

“Solve our riddle, little crow,” said the first guardian. “And you can come right in.”

“Though it will seem simple at first,” said the second, “it’s actually…”