"At Chichen Itza, ten leagues from Itzamal, the ancients say there reigned three lords, brothers, who came from the west, and gathered together many people, and reigned some years in peace and justice; and they constructed large and very beautiful edifices. It is said that they lived unmarried and very chastely; and it is added that in time one of them was missing, and that his absence worked such bad results that the other two began to be unchaste and partial; and thus the people came to hate them, and slew them, and scattered abroad, and deserted the edifices, especially the most stately one, which is ten leagues from the sea. "Those who established themselves at Chichen Itza call themselves Itzas; among these there is a tradition that there ruled a great lord called Cuculcàn, and all agree that he came from the west; and the only difference among them is as to whether he came before or after or with the Itzas; but the name of the building at Chichen Itza, and what happened after the death of the lords above mentioned, show that Cuculcan ruled the country jointly with them. He was a man of good disposition, was said not to have had either wife or children, and not to have known woman; he was devoted to the interests of the people, and for this reason was regarded as a god. In order to pacify the land he agreed to found another city, where all business could be transacted. He selected for this purpose a site eight leagues further inland from where now stands the city of Merida, and fifteen leagues from the sea. There they erected a circular wall of dry stone, about a half quarter of a league in diameter, leaving in it only two gateways. They erected temples, giving to the largest the name Cuculcàn, and also constructed around the wall the houses of the lords among whom Cuculcàn had divided the land, giving and assigning towns to each. To the city he gave the name Mayapan, which means "the Standard of the Maya," as Maya is the name of their language. "By this means the country was quieted and they lived in peace for some years under Cuculcan, who governed with justice, until, having arranged for his departure, and recommending them to continue the wise rule he had established, he left them and returned to Mexico by the same route he had come, remaining in Champoton some time, where, in memory of his journey, he erected a building in the sea, which remains to this day."[120-1] Bishop Landa and some other early writers also give versions of this tradition, but do not add any facts to those in the above quotations. Evidently it was a widespread legend of the origin of the great buildings of Chichen Itza. Is it a tradition of fact or is it a myth?