Manchester.
J. M. G. quotes Sir John Mandeville for the story of the congealed words
falling like hail from the rigging of his ship in the Arctic regions. I do
not remember the passage, but there is one almost identical in Rabelais'
_Pantagruel_, lib. iv. ch. lv., headed--
"Comment en haulte mer Pantagruel ouït diverses parolles desgelées."
In the notes to Bohn's translation it is said:
"Rabelais has borrowed these from the _Courtisan_ of Balthasar de
Castillon, of which a French translation was printed in 1539, and from
the _Apologues_ of Cælius Caleagnnius of Ferrara, published in 1544."