In the Spring, after coming back from recruiting Herman, Prochorus begins visiting the market place in Meden as well as a few places where townspeople and sailors visit, to sing and play for their amusement in exchange for stories about the island.
Things are fairly disheartening at first, as most of the mundanes look at him strangely and simply walk by without stopping. At the market place, some of the merchants loudly complain about his presence, saying he is scaring off potential customers. Once or twice, a soldier (presumably in the employ of the Danish lord) tells him to move along. The few times that people actually stop to listen to him, they just shrug as he asks for stories, or throw him a small coin instead. Or a bit of dried fish. "At least," laughs Dietlinde at his expense, "you haven't gotten too many rotten food thrown at you. Yet!"
The small magus perseveres nonetheless, for he gets the impression that a handful of townsfolk may actually be listening. After a few weeks, he gets a first story, although it proves to be nothing more than a joke about an Oberlander being too stupid to know the difference between his favored goat and his wife. Still, there is hope, so he forges on.
His main audience, after more than a month plying the market place, is mostly composed of children and older people. Most of the stories he gets seem to be much like the first, funny stories about those stooopid Oberlanders and their smelly goats. At how they cling to their rocky land 'up there' and don't earn a real living like most do in town. A few sea stories also begin to surface, as well as some tales of religious nature, mostly about Saint Ludger, the patron saint of the island.