It was a strange prophecy, but in those far-off times—the dark ages we call them—men had already fixed their hopes on flight, and school children were trained in the use of wings as in that of the globes.
We are not told what advantages this curious accomplishment gave to the little boys and girls of the thirteenth century, and, indeed, it may have brought them ill-fortune, for in those days inventors were often accused of witchcraft, and new ideas were looked upon with suspicion. Even centuries later, when the first balloons were causing great excitement in England, many people thought that it was wrong to spurn the laws of nature by attempting to fly.
MONOPLANE, THE FIRST TYPE TO CROSS THE CHANNEL.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries some very strange flying machines were made, and even before that time, in the reign of James IV. of Scotland, we find that "The Abbot of Tungland tuik in hand to flie with wingis." The bold Churchman, however, did not succeed in his rash venture, but fell from the wall of Stirling Castle and broke his thigh.
In 1709 another monk planned a wonderful flying ship which was to carry twelve men besides stores of food, and about sixty years later a Frenchman made himself "A whirl of feathers, curiously interlaced and extending gradually at suitable distances in a horizontal direction from his head to his feet." In this eccentric costume the would-be bird-man fluttered down from a height of seventy feet and escaped uninjured.
WATERPLANE, BIPLANE, AND SCOUT BALLOON.