> in the morning of april 14, 1561, at daybreak, between 4 and 5 a.m., a dreadful apparition occurred on the sun, and then this was seen in nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country  by many men and women. at first there appeared in the middle of the sun two blood-red semi-circular arcs, just like the moon in its last quarter. and in the sun, above and below and on both sides, the color was blood, there stood a round ball of partly dull, partly black ferrous color. likewise there stood on both sides and as a torus about the sun such blood-red ones and other balls in large number, about three in a line and four in a square, also some alone. in between these globes there were visible a few blood-red crosses, between which there were blood-red strips, becoming thicker to the rear and in the front malleable like the rods of reed-grass, which were intermingled, among them two big rods, one on the right, the other to the left, and within the small and big rods there were three, also four and more globes. these all started to fight among themselves, so that the globes, which were first in the sun, flew out to the ones standing on both sides, thereafter, the globes standing outside the sun, in the small and large rods, flew into the sun. besides the globes flew back and forth among themselves and fought vehemently with each other for over an hour. and when the conflict in and again out of the sun was most intense, they became fatigued to such an extent that they all, as said above, fell from the sun down upon the earth 'as if they all burned' and they then wasted away on the earth with immense smoke. after all this there was something like a black spear, very long and thick, sighted; the shaft pointed to the east, the point pointed west.
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