1230
The earth quaked on a Friday in the fifth week after Easter during dinner, and some had already dined.
The same year, on May 14, St. Sidor (Isidores) Day, on Tuesday, in the middle of the morning the sun grew dark and became like a moon of the fifth night ; and it filled out again and we godless ones were glad.
The same year, Stepan Tverdislavits quarrelled with Vodovik, Ivanko Timoshkinits siding with Stepan, and the Posadnik's servants beat Ivanko; this happened in the Gorodishche. And the next morninghe called a Veche in Yaroslav's Court against the Posadnik, and went against his Court, and they plundered it. The Posadnik and Simon Borisovich again roused up the whole town against Ivanko and Yakim Vlunkovits and Proksha Lashnev; they went from the Veche and plundered many houses and they killed Volos Blutkinits at the Veche. And Vodovik having caught Ivanko, later killed him, casting him into the Volkhov.
The same winter, the young Knyaz Rostislav went with Posadnik Vnezd to Torzhok, on December 8, on a Sunday. And the next morning, the 9th, they killed Semen Borisovits and plundered his whole house and his villages, took his wife, and himself they buried at the Church of St. Gyurgi in the monastery. Similarly the house and villages of Vodovik and of his brother Mikhail, of Danislav, of Boris the Tysyatski, and of Tvorimirits and the houses of many others. And Vodovik having heard this evil fled from Torzhok with his brothers, and the Tysyatski Boris with the men of Novitorg fled to Mikhail to Chernigov.
Famine in Novgorod. For what is there to say, or what to speak of the punishment that came to us from God? How that some of the common people killed the living and ate them ; others cutting up dead flesh and corpses ate them; others ate horseflesh, dogs and cats; but to those found in such acts they did thus—some they burned with fire, others they cut to pieces, and others they hanged. Some fed on moss, snails, pine-bark, lime-bark, lime and elm-tree leaves, and whatever each could think of. And again other wicked men began to burn the good people's houses, where they suspected that there was rye; and so they plundered their property. the dead in the streets and in the market-place, and on the great bridge, being devoured by dogs, so that they could not bury them. They put another pit outside at the end of Chudinets Street, and that became full, and there is no counting [the number of bodies in it]. And they put a third at Koleno beyond the Church of the Holy Nativity, and that likewise became full, there was no counting the bodies. And seeing all this before our eyes we should have become better; but we became worse. Brother had no sympathy with brother, nor father with son, nor mother with daughter, nor would neighbour break bread with neighbour. There was no kindness among us, but misery and unhappiness; in the streets unkindness one to another, at home anguish, seeing children crying for bread and others dying. Fathers and mothers gave away their children into servitude to merchants for bread. This distress was not in our land alone; but over the whole Russian province except Kiev alone. And so has God rewarded us according to our deeds.
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