Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Gaelic Maundeville (Author: John Maundeville)

paragraph 263

Another island is there, in which the women are sorrowful because of the birth of children and exceeding joyful because of their early death. And they say that whosoever is born comes into this life to labour, sorrow and heaviness, and every child that goes to death goes into Paradise, where it gets milk and honey, and delight without death, and youth without old age, and every good thing without labour. The folk of that island elect the king, and it is not for nobility or for wealth that they choose him, but for honesty and for truthfulness and for good manners and for wisdom. And if they find these in the poorest man in the island they will make a king of him. And if that king commit injustice or unlawfulness, no one in the world will dare to speak to him, or to give him food or drink or service, until (at last) he dies of hunger.