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8 High up in the north, towards the top of the Earth Mountain, it was bitterly cold and its land was deserted. When old the body will no longer be as warm, soft, and well coming as before. ... Yudhishtira, the eldest of the five Pandhavas, becoming weary of the world, resolves to retire from the sovereignty and acquire merit by pilgrimage. On hearing of his intentions his four brothers - Bhima, Arjuna, and the twins Nakula and Sahadeva - resolve to follow his example and accompany him. Yudhishtira appoints successors to his various kingdoms. The citizens and the inhabitants of the provinces, hearing the king's words, became filled with anxiety and disapproved of them. 'This should never be done' - said they unto the king. The monarch, well versed with the changes brought about by time, did not listen to their counsels. Possessed of righteous soul, he persuaded the people to sanction his views ... The five brothers, with Draupadi forming the sixth [she was the joint wife of the brothers], and a dog forming the seventh, set out on their journey. The citizens and the ladies of the royal household followed them for some distance ... The denizens of the city then returned. The seven pilgrims meanwhile had set out upon their journey. They first wandered eastward, then southward, and then westward. Lastly they faced northward and crossed the Himalaya. Then they beheld before them a vast desert of sand and beyond it Mount Meru. One by one the pilgrims sank exhausted and expired, first Draupadi, then the twins, then Arjuna, then Bhima; but Yudhishtira, who never even looked back at his fallen comrades, still pressed on and, followed by the faithful dog who turns out to be Dharma (the Law), in disguise, entered Heaven in his mortal body, not having tasted death ...
... The ancient Chinese believed that with the arrival of the dry season the earth and sky ceased to communicate. The Spirit of drought was personified by a little bald woman with eyes at the top of her head. While she was present, the sky refrained from sending rain, so as not to harm her. Hills and rivers are the first to suffer from drought. It deprives hills of their trees, i.e. their hair, and rivers of their fish, which are their people. The same word, wang, means mad, deceitful, lame, hunchbacked, bald and Spirit of drought ... Because warmth is created by movements and old people will no longer jump arund.
Towards the poles the distance between the right ascension lines will become more narrow, ultimately leading them all together to a full stop (the spider's home).
... Take the lower part of a gourd or hula drum, rounded as a wheel (globe), on which several lines are to be marked and burned in, as described hereafter. These lines are called na alanui o na hoku hookele, the highways of the navigation stars, which stars are also called na hoku ai-aina, the stars which rule the land. Stars lying outside these three lines are called na hoku a ka lewa, foreign, strange, or outside stars. The first line is drawn from Hoku-paa, the fixed or North Star, to the most southerly star of Newe, the Southern Cross. (This hour circle coincides with the meridian on an evening in June, when it would divide the visible sky into halves.) The portion (of the sky) to the right or east of this line (the observer is evidently assumed to be facing north) is called ke ala ula a Kane, the dawning or bright road of Kane, and that to the left or west is called ke alanui maawe ula a Kanaloa, the much-traveled highway of Kanaloa. (Kane and Kanaloa were important gods in the Polynesian pantheon, Kane being associated with light, Kanaloa with darkness.) Then three lines are drawn east and west, one across the northern section indicates the northern limit of the Sun (corresponding with the Tropic of Cancer) about the 15th and 16th days of the month Kaulua (i.e., the 21st or 22nd of June) and is called ke alanui polohiwa a Kane, the black-shining road of Kane. The line across the southern section indicates the southern limit of the Sun about the 15th or 16th days of the month Hilinama (December 22) and is called ke alanui polohiwa a Kanaloa, the black-shining road of Kanaloa. The line exactly around the middle of the sphere is called ke alanui a ke ku'uku'u, the road of the spider ... According to Einstein's theory of gravitation time will appear to move slower and slower for a clock seen rushing towards a black hole. Space-time will no longer appear to be straight and instead it will look curved.
Also the ancient time-space curvatures should result in slowing down. ... The dream soul moved along a curve from Peke Tau O Hiti to the mountain Hau Epa, which she named 'Maunga Hau Epa A Hau Maka O Hiva.' The dream soul went to the other side of the mountain Hau Epa. As soon as the dream soul looked around, she saw the sand (beach), which was very white and light. She remained there and explored everything ... This effect caused both Epimenides and the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus to remain young when the rest of the world kept on ageing. And it caused trouble also for Rip Van Winkle: ... The story of Rip Van Winkle is set in the years before and after the American Revolutionary War. Rip Van Winkle, a villager of Dutch descent, lives in a nice village at the foot of New York's Catskill Mountains. An amiable man whose home and farm suffer from his lazy neglect, he is loved by all but his wife. One autumn day he escapes his nagging wife by wandering up the mountains. After encountering strangely dressed men, rumored to be the ghosts of Henry Hudson's crew, who are playing nine-pins, and after drinking some of their liquor, he settles down under a shady tree and falls asleep. He wakes up twenty years later and returns to his village. He finds out that his wife is dead and his close friends have died in a war or gone somewhere else. He immediately gets into trouble when he hails himself a loyal subject of King George III, not knowing that in the meantime the American Revolution has taken place. An old local recognizes him, however, and Rip's now grown daughter eventually puts him up ...
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