It happened on a time that Virgil, who knew all things hidden or magical, he being a magician and poet, having heard an oration, was asked what he thought of it.
And he replied:
“It seems impossible for me to tell whether it is all introduction or conclusion. It is like certain fish, of whom one is in doubt whether they are all head or all tail, or the goddess Laverna, of whom no one ever knew whether she was all head or all body, or both.”
Then the Emperor asked him who this deity might be, for he had never heard of her.
And Virgil answered:
“Among the gods or spirits who were of the ancient times there was one female, who was the craftiest and most knavish of all. She was called Laverna; she was a thief, and very little known to the other deities, who were honest and dignified, while Laverna was rarely in heaven or in the country of the fairies. She was almost always on earth among thieves, pickpockets, and panders; (she lived) in darkness. Once it happened that she went to a great priest, in the form of a very beautiful, stately priestess, and said to him:
“‘Sell me your estate. I wish to raise on it a temple to (our) god. I swear to you on my body that I will pay thee within a year.’ [39]
“Therefore the priest gave her the estate. And very soon Laverna had sold off all the crops, grain, cattle, and poultry. There was not left the value of four farthings. But on the day fixed for payment there was no Laverna to be seen. The fair goddess was far away, and had left her creditor in the lurch—in asso.
“At the same time Laverna went to a great lord, and bought of him a castle, well-furnished, with much land. But this time she swore on her head to pay in full in six months. And she did as she had done by the priest; she stole and sold everything—furniture, cattle, crops; there was not left wherewith to feed a fly.
“Then the priest and the lord appealed to the gods, complaining that they had been robbed by a goddess. And it was soon found that the thief was Laverna. Therefore she was called to judgment before all the gods. And she was asked what she had done with the property of the priest, unto whom she had sworn by her body to make payment at the time appointed. And she replied by a strange deed, which amazed them all, for she made her body disappear, so that only her head remained, and it cried: