Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
History
Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
Middle East -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Palestine -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
After this, beyond the vale, is a great isle, the inhabitants of which
are great giants of twenty-eight or thirty feet long, with no clothing
but skins of beasts, that they hang upon them; and they eat nothing but
raw flesh, and drink milk of beasts. They have no houses to lie in. And
they eat more gladly man's flesh than any other flesh. Into that isle
dare no man enter; and if they see a ship, and men therein, anon they
enter into the sea to take them. And men told us that in an isle beyond
that were giants of greater stature, some of forty-five or fifty feet
long, and even, as some men say, of fifty cubits long; but I saw none of
those, for I had no lust to go to those parts, because that no man comes
either into that isle or into the other but he will be devoured anon.
And among those giants are sheep as great as oxen here, which bear great
rough wool. Of the sheep I have seen many times. And men have said many
times those giants take men, in the sea, out of their ships, and bring
them to land, two in one hand and two in the other, eating them going,
all raw and alive. In another isle, towards the north, in the Sea of
Ocean, are very evil women, who have precious stones in their eyes; and
if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him with the look. In
another isle, which is fair and great, and full of people, the custom
is, that the first night that they are married they make another man to
lie by their wives, to have their maidenhead, for which they give great
hire and much thanks. And there are certain men in every town that serve
for no other thing; and they call them cadeberiz, that is to say, the
fools of despair, because they believe their occupation is a dangerous
one. After that is another isle, where women make great sorrow when
their children are born; and when they die, they make great feasts, and
great joy and revel, and then they cast them into a great burning fire.
And those that love well their husbands, if their husbands die, they
cast themselves also into the fire, with their children, and burn them.
In that isle they make their king always by election; and they choose
him not for nobleness or riches, but such a one as is of good manners
and condition, and therewithal just; and also that he be of great age,
and that he have no children.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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