Michael Crichton - Eaters of the Dead
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EATERS OF
THE DEAD
The Manuscript of Ibn Fadlan,
Relating His Experiences
with the Northmen in A.D. 922
MICHAEL CRICHTON
To William Howells
CONTENTS
CONTENTS 8
INTRODUCTION 10
PROVENANCE OF THE MANUSCRIPT 10
THE VIKINGS 11
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 13
THE DEPARTURE FROM THE CITY OF PEACE 15
THE WAYS OF THE OGUZ TURKS 18
FIRST CONTACT WITH THE NORTHMEN 22
THE AFTERMATH OF THE NORTHMEN'S FUNERAL 27
THE JOURNEY TO THE FAR COUNTRY 30
THE ENCAMPMENT AT TRELBURG 38
THE KINGDOM OF ROTHGAR IN THE LAND OF VENDEN 43
THE EVENTS THAT FOLLOWED THE FIRST BATTLE 54
THE ATTACK OF THE GLOWWORM DRAGON KORGON 62
THE DESERT OF DREAD 69
THE COUNSEL OF THE DWARF 74
THE EVENTS OF THE NIGHT BEFORE THE ATTACK 77
THE THUNDER CAVES 79
THE DEATH THROES OF THE WENDOL 85
THE RETURN FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY 88
APPENDIX: THE MIST MONSTERS 90
SOURCES 93
I. PRIMARY SOURCE 93
II. SECONDARY SOURCES 94
III. GENERAL REFERENCE WORKS 94
A FACTUAL NOTE ON EATERS OF THE DEAD 95
About the Author 98
"Praise not the day until evening has come; a woman until she is burnt; a sword until it is tried;
a maiden until she is married; ice until it has been crossed; beer until it has been drunk."
—VIKING PROVERB
"Evil is of old date."
—ARAB PROVERB
INTRODUCTION
THE IBN FADLAN MANUSCRIPT REPRESENTS THE earliest known eyewitness account of Viking life and
society. It is an extraordinary document, describing in vivid detail events which occurred more
than a thousand years ago. The manuscript has not, of course, survived intact over that enormous
span of time. It has a peculiar history of its own, and one no less remarkable than the text
itself.
PROVENANCE OF THE MANUSCRIPT
In June, A.D. 921, the Caliph of Bagdad sent a member of his court, Ahmad Ibn Fadlan, as
ambassador to the King of the Bulgars. Ibn Fadlan was gone three years on his journey and never
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actually accomplished his mission, for along the way he encountered a company of Norsemen and had
many adventures among them.
When he finally returned to Bagdad, Ibn Fadlan recorded his experiences in the form of an official
report to the court. That original manuscript has long since disappeared, and to reconstruct it we
must rely on partial fragments preserved in later sources.
The best-known of these is an Arabic geographical lexicon written by Yakut ibn-Abdallah sometime
in the thirteenth century. Yakut includes a dozen verbatim passages from Ibn Fadlan's account,
which was then three hundred years old. One must presume Yakut worked from a copy of the original.
Nevertheless these few paragraphs have been endlessly translated and retranslated by later
scholars.
Another fragment was discovered in Russia in 1817 and was published in German by the St.
Petersburg Academy in 1823. This material includes certain passages previously published by J. L.
Rasmussen in 1814. Rasmussen worked from a manuscript he found in Copenhagen, since lost, and of
dubious origins. There were also Swedish, French, and English translations at this time, but they
are all notoriously inaccurate and apparently do not include any new material.
In 1878, two new manuscripts were discovered in the private antiquities collection of Sir John
Emerson, the British Ambassador in Constantinople. Sir John was apparently one of those avid
collectors whose zeal for acquisition exceeded his interest in the particular item acquired. The
manuscripts were found after his death; no one knows where he obtained them, or when.
One is a geography in Arabic by Ahmad Tusi, reliably dated at A.D. 1047. This makes the Tusi
manuscript chronologically closer than any other to the original of Ibn Fadlan, which was
presumably written around A.D. 924-926. Yet scholars regard the Tusi manuscript as the least
trustworthy of all the sources; the text is full of obvious errors and internal inconsistencies,
and although it quotes at length from one "Ibn Faqih" who visited the North country, many
authorities hesitate to accept this material.
The second manuscript is that of Amin Razi, dating roughly from A.D. 1585-1595. It is written in
Latin and according to its author is translated directly from the Arabic text of Ibn Fadlan. The
Razi manuscript contains some material about the Oguz Turks, and several passages concerning
battles with the mist monsters, not found in other sources.
In 1934, a final text in Medieval Latin was found in the monastery of Xymos, near Thessalonika in
northeastern Greece. The Xymos manuscript contains further commentary on Ibn Fadlan's relations
with the Caliph, and his experiences with the creatures of the North country. The author and date
of the Xymos manuscript are both uncertain.
The task of collating these many versions and translations, ranging over more than a thousand
years, appearing in Arabic, Latin, German, French, Danish, Swedish, and English, is an undertaking
of formidable proportions. Only a person of great erudition and energy would attempt it, and in
1951 such a person did. Per Fraus-Dolos, Professor emeritus of Comparative literature at the
University of Oslo, Norway, compiled all the known sources and began the massive task of
translation which occupied him until his death in 1957. Portions of his new translation were
published in the Proceedings of the National Museum of Oslo: 1959-1960, but they did not arouse
much scholarly interest, perhaps because the journal has a limited circulation.
The Fraus-Dolos translation was absolutely literal; in his own introduction to the material, Fraus-
Dolos remarked that "it is in the nature of languages that a pretty translation is not accurate,
and an accurate translation finds its own beauty without help."
In preparing this full and annotated version of the Fraus-Dolos translation, I have made few
alterations. I deleted some repetitive passages; these are indicated in the text. I changed
paragraph structure, starting each directly quoted speaker with a new paragraph, according to
modern convention. I have omitted the diacritical marks on Arabic names. Finally, I have
occasionally altered the original syntax, usually by transposing subordinate clauses so that the
meaning is more readily grasped.
THE VIKINGS
Ibn Fadlan's portrait of the Vikings differs markedly from the traditional European view of these
people. The first European descriptions of the Vikings were recorded by the clergy; they were the
only observers of the time who could write, and they viewed the pagan Northmen with special
horror. Here is a typically hyperbolic passage, cited by D. M. Wilson, from a twelfth-century
Irish writer:
In a word, although there were an hundred hard-steeled iron heads on one neck, and an hundred
sharp, ready, cool, never rusting, brazen tongues in each head, and an hundred garrulous, loud,
unceasing voices from each tongue, they could not recount or narrate, enumerate or tell, what all
the Irish suffered in common, both men and women, laity and clergy, old and young, noble and
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ignoble, of the hardships and of injuring and of oppression, in every house, from those valiant,
wrathful, purely pagan people.
Modern scholars recognize that such bloodcurdling accounts of Viking raids are vastly exaggerated.
Yet European writers still tend to dismiss the Scandinavians as bloody barbarians, irrelevant to
the main flow of Western culture and ideas. Often this has been done at the expense of a certain
logic. For example, David Talbot Rice writes:
From the eighth to the eleventh centuries indeed the role of the Vikings was perhaps more
influential than that of any other single ethnic group in Western Europe. ... The Vikings were
thus great travellers and they performed outstanding feats of navigation; their cities were great
centres of trade; their art was original, creative and influential; they boasted a fine literature
and a developed culture. Was it truly a civilization? It must, I think, be admitted that it was
not. ... The touch of humanism which is the hallmark of civilization was absent.
This same attitude is reflected in the opinion of Lord Clark:
When one considers the Icelandic sagas, which are among the great books of the world, one must
admit that the Norsemen produced a culture. But was it civilization? ... Civilization means
something more than energy and will and creative power: something the early Norsemen hadn't got,
but which, even in their time, was beginning to reappear in Western Europe. How can I define it.?
Well, very shortly, a sense of permanence. The wanderers and invaders were in a continual state of
flux. They didn't feel the need to look forward beyond the next March or the next voyage or the
next battle. And for that reason it didn't occur to them to build stone houses, or to write books.
The more carefully one reads these views, the more illogical they appear. Indeed, one must wonder
why highly educated and intelligent European scholars feel so free to dismiss the Vikings with no
more than a passing nod. And why the preoccupation with the semantic question of whether the
Vikings had a "civilization"? The situation is explicable only if one recognizes a long-standing
European bias, springing from traditional views of European prehistory.
Every Western schoolchild is dutifully taught that the Near East is "the cradle of civilization,"
and that the first civilizations arose in Egypt and Mesopotamia, nourished by the Nile and the
Tigris-Euphrates river basins. From here civilization spread to Crete and Greece, and then to
Rome, and eventually to the barbarians of northern Europe.
What these barbarians were doing while they waited for the arrival of civilization was not known;
nor was the question often raised. The emphasis lay on the process of dissemination, which the
late Gordon Childe summarized as "the irradiation of European barbarism by Oriental civilization."
Modern scholars held this view, as did Roman and Greek scholars before them. Geoffrey Bibby says:
"The history of northern and eastern Europe is viewed from the West and South, with all the
preconceptions of men who considered themselves civilized looking upon men whom they considered
barbarians."
From this standpoint, the Scandinavians are obviously the farthest from the source of
civilization, and logically the last to acquire it; and therefore they are properly regarded as
the last of the barbarians, a nagging thorn in the side of those other European areas trying to
absorb the wisdom and civilization of the East.
The trouble is that this traditional view of European prehistory has been largely destroyed in the
last fifteen years. The development of accurate carbon-dating techniques has made a mess of the
old chronology, which supported the old views of diffusion. It now appears indisputable that
Europeans were erecting huge megalithic tombs before the Egyptians built the pyramids; Stonehenge
is older than the civilization of Mycenaean Greece; metallurgy in Europe may well precede the
development of metalworking skills in Greece and Troy.
The meaning of these discoveries has not yet been sorted out, but it is certainly now impossible
to regard the prehistoric Europeans as savages idly awaiting the blessings of Eastern
civilization. On the contrary, the Europeans seem to have had organizational skills considerable
enough to work massive stones, and they seem also to have had impressive astronomical knowledge to
build Stonehenge, the first observatory in the world.
Thus, the European bias toward the civilized East must be called into question, and indeed the
very concept of "European barbarism" requires a fresh look. With this in mind, those barbaric
remnants, the Vikings, take on a new significance, and we can reexamine what is known of the
Scandinavians of the tenth century.
First we should recognize that "the Vikings were never a clearly unified group. What the Europeans
saw were scattered and individual parties of seafarers who came from a vast geographical
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area—Scandinavia is larger than Portugal, Spain, and France combined—and who sailed from their
individual feudal states for the purpose of trade or piracy or both; the Vikings made little
distinction. But that is a tendency shared by many seafarers from the Greeks to the Elizabethans.
In fact, for a people who lacked civilization, who "didn't feel the need to look ... beyond the
next battle," the Vikings demonstrate remarkably sustained and purposeful behavior. As proof of
widespread trading, Arabic coins appear in Scandinavia as early as A.D. 692. During the next four
hundred years, the Viking trader-pirates expanded as far west as Newfoundland, as far south as
Sicily and Greece (where they left carvings on the lions of Delos), and as far east as the Ural
Mountains of Russia, where their traders linked up with caravans arriving from the silk route to
China. The Vikings were not empire builders, and it is popular to say that their influence across
this vast area was impermanent. Yet it was sufficiently permanent to lend placenames to many
localities in England, while to Russia they gave the very name of the nation itself, from the
Norse tribe Rus. As for the more subtle influence of their pagan vigor, relentless energy, and
system of values, the manuscript of Ibn Fadlan shows us how many typically Norse attitudes have
been retained . to the present day. Indeed, there is something strikingly familiar to the modern
sensibility about the Viking way of life, and something profoundly appealing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A word should be said about Ibn Fadlan, the man who speaks to us with such a distinctive voice
despite the passage of more than a thousand years and the filter of transcribers and translators
from a dozen linguistic and cultural traditions.
We know almost nothing of him personally. Apparently he was educated and, from his exploits, he
could not have been very old. He states explicitly that he was a familiar of the Caliph, whom he
did not particularly admire. (In this he was not alone, for the Caliph al-Muqtadir was twice
deposed and finally slain by one of his own officers.)
Of his society, we know more. In the tenth century, Bagdad, the City of Peace, was the most
civilized city on earth. More than a million inhabitants lived within its famous circular walls.
Bagdad was the focus of intellectual and commercial excitement, within an environment of
extraordinary grace, elegance, and splendor. There were perfumed gardens, cool shady arbors, and
the accumulated riches of a vast empire.
The Arabs of Bagdad were Muslim and fiercely dedicated to that religion. But they were also
exposed to peoples who looked, acted, and believed differently from them. The Arabs were, in fact,
the least provincial people in the world of that time, and this made them superb observers of
foreign cultures.
Ibn Fadlan himself is clearly an intelligent and observant man. He is interested in both the
everyday details of life and the beliefs of the people he meets. Much that he witnessed struck him
as vulgar, obscene, and barbaric, but he wastes little time in indignation; once he expresses his
disapproval, he goes right back to his unblinking observations. And he reports what he sees with
remarkably little condescension.
His manner of reporting may seem eccentric to Western sensibilities; he does not tell a story as
we are accustomed to hearing one. We tend to forget that our own sense of drama originates in an
oral tradition—a live performance by a bard before an audience that must often have been restless
and impatient, or else sleepy after a heavy meal. Our oldest stories, the Iliad, Beowulf, the Song
of Roland, were all intended to be sung by singers whose chief function and first obligation was
entertainment.
But Ibn Fadlan was a writer, and his principal aim was not entertainment. Nor was it to glorify
some listening patron, or to reinforce the myths of the society in which he lived. On the
contrary, he was an ambassador delivering a report; his tone is that of a tax auditor, not a bard;
an anthropologist, not a dramatist. Indeed, he often slights the most exciting elements of his
narrative rather than let them interfere with his clear and level-headed account.
At times this dispassion is so irritating we fail to recognize how extraordinary a spectator he
really is. For hundreds of years after Ibn Fadlan, the tradition among travelers was to write
wildly speculative, fanciful chronicles of foreign marvels—talking animals, feathered men who
flew, encounters with behemoths and unicorns. As recently as two hundred years ago, otherwise
sober Europeans were filling their journals with nonsense about African baboons that waged war
with farmers, and so on.
Ibn Fadlan never speculates. Every word rings true; and whenever he reports by hearsay, he is
careful to say so. He is equally careful to specify when he is an eyewitness: that is why he uses
the phrase "I saw with my own eyes" over and over.
In the end, it is this quality of absolute truthfulness which makes his tale so horrifying. For
his encounter with the monsters of the mist, the "eaters of the dead," is told with the same
attention to detail, the same careful skepticism, that marks the other portions of the manuscript.
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In any case, the reader may judge for himself.
THE DEPARTURE FROM THE CITY OF PEACE
PRAISE BE TO GOD, THE MERCIFUL, THE compassionate, the Lord of the Two Worlds, and blessing and
peace upon the Prince of Prophets, our Lord and Master Muhammad, whom God bless and preserve with
abiding and continuing peace and blessings until the Day of the Faith!
This is the book of Ahmad ibn-Fadlan, ibnal-Abbas, ibn-Rasid, ibn-Hammad, a client of Muhammad ibn-
Sulayman, the ambassador from al-Muqtadir to the King of the Saqaliba, in which he recounts what
he saw in the land of the Turks, the Hazars, the Saqaliba, the Baskirs, the Rus, and the Northmen,
of the histories of their kings and the way they act in many affairs of their life.
The letter of the Yiltawar, King of the Saqaliba, reached the Commander of the Faithful, al-
Muqtadir. He asked him therein to send someone who would instruct him in religion and make him
acquainted with the laws of Islam; who would build for him a mosque and erect for him a pulpit
from which might be carried out the mission of converting his people in all the districts of his
kingdom; and also for advice in the construction of fortifications and defense works. And he
prayed the Caliph to do these things. The intermediary in this matter was Dadir al-Hurami.
The Commander of the Faithful, al-Muqtadir, as many know, was not a strong and just caliph, but
drawn to pleasures and the flattering speeches of his officers, who played him the fool and jested
mightily behind his back. I was not of this company, or especially beloved of the Caliph, for the
reason that follows.
In the City of Peace lived an elderly merchant of the name ibn-Qarin, rich in all things but
lacking a generous heart and a love of man. He hoarded his gold and likewise his young wife, whom
none had ever seen but all bespoke as beautiful beyond imagining. On a certain day, the Caliph
sent me to deliver to ibn-Qarin a message, and I presented myself to the house of the merchant and
sought entrance therein with my letter and seal. Until today, I do not know the import of the
letter, but it does not matter.
The merchant was not at home, being abroad on some business; I explained to the door servant that
I must await his return, since the Caliph had instructed I must deliver the message into his hands
from mine only. Thus the door servant admitted me into the house, which procedure took some
passing of time, for the door to the house had many bolts, locks, bars, and fasteners, as is
common in the dwellings of misers. At length I was admitted and I waited all day, growing hungry
and thirsty, but was offered no refreshments by the servants of the niggardly merchant.
In the heat of the afternoon, when all about me the house was still and the servants slept, I,
too, felt drowsy. Then before me I saw an apparition in white, a woman young and beautiful, whom I
took to be the very wife no man had ever seen. She did not speak, but with gestures led me to
another room, and there locked the door. I enjoyed her upon the spot, in which matter she required
no encouragement, for her husband was old and no doubt neglectful. Thus did the afternoon pass
quickly, until we heard the master of the house making his return. Immediately the wife arose and
departed, having never uttered a word in my presence, and I was left to arrange my garments in
some haste.
Now I should have been apprehended for certain were it not for these same many locks and bolts
which impeded the miser's entry into his own home. Even so, the merchant ibn-Qarin found me in the
adjoining room, and he viewed me with suspicion, asking why I should be there and not in the
courtyard, where it was proper for a messenger to wait. I replied that I was famished and faint,
and had searched for food and shade. This was a poor lie and he did not believe it; he complained
to the Caliph, who I know was amused in private and yet compelled to adopt a stern face to the
public. Thus when the ruler of the Saqaliba asked for a mission from the Caliph, this same
spiteful ibn-Qarin urged I be sent, and so I was.
In our company there was the ambassador of the King of Saqaliba who was called Abdallah ibn-Bastu
al-Hazari, a tedious and windy man who talked overmuch. There was also Takin al-Turki, Bars al-
Saqlabi, both guides on the journey, and I, too. We bore gifts for the ruler, for his wife, his
children, and his generals. Also we brought certain drugs, which were given over to the care of
Sausan al-Rasi. This was our parry.
So we started on Thursday, the 11th of Safar of the year 309 [June 21, 921], from the City of
Peace [Bagdad]. We stopped a day in Nahrawan, and from there went swiftly until we reached al-
Daskara, where we stopped for three days. Then we traveled straight onward without any detours
until we reached Hulwan. There we stayed two days. From there we went to Qirmisin, where we
remained two days. Then we started and traveled until we reached Hamadan, where we remained three
days. Then we went farther to Sawa, where we remained two days. From there we came to Ray, where
we remained eleven days waiting for Ahmad ibn-Ali, the brother of al-Rasi, because he was in Huwar
al-Ray. Then we went to Huwar al-Ray and remained there three days.
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This passage gives the flavor of Ibn Fadlan's descriptions of travel. Perhaps a quarter of the
entire manuscript is written in this fashion, simply listing the names of settlements and the
number of days spent at each. Most of this material has been deleted.
Apparently, Ibn Fadlan's party is traveling northward, and eventually they are required to halt
for winter.
Our stay in Gurganiya was lengthy; we stayed there some days of the month of Ragab [November] and
during the whole of Saban, Ramadan, and Sawwal. Our long stay was brought about by the cold and
its bitterness. Verily, they told me that two men took camels into the forests to get wood. They
forgot, however, to take flint and tinder with them, and hence slept in the night without a fire.
When they got up the next morning, they found the camels had been frozen stiff from the cold.
Verily, I beheld the marketplace and streets of Gurganiya completely deserted because of the cold.
One could stroll the streets without meeting anyone. Once as I came out of my bath, I entered my
house and looked at my beard, which was a lump of ice. I had to thaw it out before the fire. I
lived night and day in a house that was inside another house, in which a Turkish felt tent was
pitched, and I myself was wrapped up in many clothes and fur rugs. But in spite of all this, my
cheeks often stuck to the pillow at night.
In this extremity of cold, I saw that the earth sometimes forms great cracks, and a large and
ancient tree may split into two halves from this.
About the middle of Sawwal of the year 309 [February, 922], the weather began to change, the river
thawed, and we got ourselves the necessary things for the journey. We bought Turkish camels and
skin boats made out of camel hides, in preparation for the rivers we would have to cross in the
land of Turks.
We laid in a supply of bread, millet, and salted meat for three months. Our acquaintances in the
town directed us in laying in garments, as much as was needed. They depicted the coming hardships
in fearful terms, and we believed they exaggerated the story, yet when we underwent this, it was
far greater than what had been told to us.
Each of us put on a jacket, over that a coat, over that a tulup, over that a burka, and a helmet
of felt out of which only the two eyes could look. We also had a simple pair of underdrawers with
trousers over them, and house shoes and over these another pair of boots. When one of us got on a
camel, he could not move because of his clothes.
The doctor of the law and the teacher and the pages who traveled with us from Bagdad departed from
us now, fearing to enter this new country, so 1, the ambassador, his brother-in-law and two pages,
Takin and Bars, proceeded.
The caravan was ready to start. We took into our service a guide from the inhabitants of the town
whose name was Qlawus. Then, trusting in the all-powerful and exalted God, we started on Monday,
the third of Dulqada of the year 309 [March 3, 922] from the town Gurganiya.
That same day, we stopped at the burg called Zamgan: that is, the gateway to the Turks. The next
morning early, we proceeded to Git. There so much snow fell that the camels plunged in it up to
their knees; hence we halted two days.
Then we sped straight into the land of the Turks without meeting anyone on the barren and even
steppe. We rode ten days in bitter cold and unbroken snowstorms, in comparison with which the cold
in Chwarezm seemed like a summer day, so that we forgot all our previous discomforts and were
about at the point of giving up.
One day when we underwent the most savage cold weather, Takin the page was riding next to me, and
along with him one of the Turks, who was talking to him in Turkish. Takin laughed and said to me,
"This Turk says, 'What will our Lord have of us? He is killing us with cold. If we knew what he
wanted, we would let him have it.' "
And then I said, "Tell him He only wishes that you say, 'There is no God save Allah.' "
The Turk laughed and answered, "If I knew it, I would say it."
Then we came to a forest where there was a large quantity of dry wood and we halted. The caravan
lit fires, we warmed ourselves, took off our clothes, and spread them out to dry.
Apparently, Ibn Fadlan's party was entering a warmer region, because he makes no further reference
to extreme cold.
We set out again and rode every day from midnight until the time of the afternoon prayer—hastening
more from midday on—and then we halted. When we had ridden fifteen nights in this manner, we
arrived at a large mountain with many great rocks. There are springs there, that jet out from the
rocks and the water stays in pools. From this place, we crossed on until we reached a Turkish
tribe, which is called the Oguz.
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THE WAYS OF THE OGUZ TURKS
THE OGUZ ARE NOMADS AND HAVE HOUSES OF felt. They stay for a time in one place and then travel on.
Their dwellings are placed here and there according to nomadic custom. Although they lead a hard
existence, they are like asses gone astray. They have no religious bonds with God. They never
pray, but instead call their headmen Lords. When one of them takes counsel with his chief about
something, he says, "O Lord, what shall I do in this or that matter?"
Their undertakings are based upon counsel solely among themselves. I have heard them say, "There
is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah," but they speak thus so as to get close
to any Muslims, and not because they believe it.
The ruler of the Oguz Turks is called Yabgu. That is the name of the ruler and everyone who rules
over this tribe bears the name. His subordinate is always called Kudarkin and so each subordinate
to a chieftain is called Kudarkin.
The Oguz do not wash themselves after either defecation or urination, nor do they bathe after
ejaculation, or on other occasions. They have nothing whatever to do with water, especially in
winter. No merchants or other Muhammadans may perform ablution in their presence except in the
night when the Turks do not see it, for they get angry and say, "This man wishes to put a spell on
us, for he is immersing himself in water," and they compel him to pay a fine.
None of the Muhammadans can enter Turkish country until one of the Oguz agrees to become his host,
with whom he stays and for whom he brings garments from the land of Islam, and for his wife some
pepper, millet, raisins, and nuts. When the Muslim comes to his host, the latter pitches a tent
for him and brings him sheep, so that the Muslim may himself slaughter the sheep. The Turks never
slaughter; they beat the sheep on the head until it is dead.
Oguz women never veil themselves in the presence of their own men or others. Nor does the woman
cover any of her bodily parts in the presence of any person. One day we stopped off with a Turk
and were seated in his tent. The man's wife was present. As we conversed, the woman uncovered her
pudendum and scratched it, and we saw her doing so. We veiled our faces and said, "I beg God's
pardon." At this her husband laughed and said to the interpreter, "Tell them we uncover it in your
presence so that you may see it and be abashed, but it is not to be attained. This is better than
when you cover it up and yet it is attainable."
Adultery is unknown among them. Whomsoever they find to be an adulterer, they tear him in two.
This comes about so: they bring together the branches of two trees, tie him to the branches, and
then let both trees go so the man who was tied to the trees is torn in two.
The custom of pederasty is counted by the Turks a terrible sin. There once came a merchant to stay
with the clan of the Kudarkin. This merchant stayed with his host for a time to buy sheep. Now,
the host had a beardless son, and the guest sought unceasingly to lead him astray until he got the
boy to consent to his will. In the meantime, the Turkish host entered and caught them in flagrante
delicto.
The Turks wished to kill the merchant and also the son for this offense. But after much pleading
the merchant was permitted to ransom himself. He paid his host with four hundred sheep for what he
had done to his son, and then the merchant hastily departed from the land of the Turks.
All the Turks pluck their beards with the exception of their mustaches.
Their marriage customs are as follows: one of them asks for the hand of a female member of
another's family, against such and such a marriage price. The marriage price often consists of
camels, pack animals, and other things. No one can take a wife until he has fulfilled the
obligation, on which he has come to an understanding with the men of the family. If, however, he
has met it, then he comes without any ado, enters the abode where she is, takes her in the
presence of her father, mother, and brothers, and they do not prevent him.
If a man dies who has a wife and children, then the eldest of his sons takes her to wife if she is
not his mother.
If one of the Turks becomes sick and has slaves, they look after him and no one of his family
comes near him. A tent is pitched for him apart from the houses and he does not depart from it
until he dies or gets well. If, however, he is a slave or a poor man, they leave him in the desert
and go on their way.
When one of their prominent men dies, they dig for him a great pit in the form of a house and they
go to him, dress him in a qurtaq with his belt and bow, and put a drinking cup of wood with
intoxicating drink in his hand. They take his entire possessions and put them in this house. Then
they set him down in it also. Then they build another house over him and make a kind of cupola out
of mud.
Then they kill his horses. They kill one or two hundred, as many as he has, at the site of the
grave. Then they eat the flesh down to the head, the hooves, the hide, and the tail, for they hang
these up on wooden poles and say, "These are his steeds on which he rides to Paradise."
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If he has been a hero and slain enemies, they carve wooden statues in the number of those whom he
has slain, place them upon his grave, and say, "These are his pages who serve him in Paradise."
Sometimes they delay killing the horses for a day or two, and then an old man from among their
elderly ones stirs them up by saying, "I have seen the dead man in my sleep and he said to me:
'Here thou seest me. My comrades have overtaken me and my feet were too weak to follow them. I
cannot overtake them and so have remained alone.' " In this case, the people slaughter his steeds
and hang them up on his grave. After a day or two, the same elder comes to them and says, "I have
seen the dead man in a dream and he said: 'Inform my family that I have recovered from my plight.'
"
In this way the old man preserves the ways of the Oguz, for there might otherwise be a desire for
the living to retain the horses of the dead.
At length we traveled on in the Turkish kingdom. One morning one of the Turks met us. He was ugly
in figure, dirty in appearance, despicable in manner, and base in nature. He said: "Halt." The
whole caravan halted in obedience to his command. Then he said, "No single one of you may
proceed." We said to him, "We are friends of the Kudarkin." He began to laugh and said, "Who is
the Kudarkin? I defecate on his beard."
No man among us knew what to do at these words, but then the Turk said, "Bekend"; that is, "bread"
in the language of Chwarezm. I gave him a few sheets of bread. He took them and said, "You may go
further. I take pity upon you."
We came to the district of the army commander whose name was Etrek ibn-al-Qatagan. He pitched
Turkish tents for us and had us stay in them. He himself had a large establishment, servants and
large dwellings. He drove in sheep for us that we might slaughter them, and put horses at our
disposal for riding. The Turks speak of him as their best horseman, and in truth I saw one day,
when he raced with us on his horse and as a goose flew over us, he strung his bow and then,
guiding his horse under it, shot at the goose and brought it down.
I presented to him a suit from Merv, a pair of boots of red leather, a coat of brocade, and five
coats of silk. He accepted these with glowing words of praise. He removed the brocade coat that he
wore in order to don the garments of honor I had just given him. Then I saw that the qurtaq which
he had underneath was fraying apart and filthy, but it is their custom that no one shall remove
the garment that he wears next to his body until it disintegrates. Verily also he plucked out his
entire beard and even his mustache, so that he looked like a eunuch. And yet, as I have observed,
he was their best horseman.
I believed that these fine gifts should win his friendship to us, but such was not to be. He was a
treacherous man.
One day he sent for the leaders close to him; that is, Tarhan, Yanal, and Glyz. Tarhan was the
most influential among them; he was crippled and blind and had a maimed hand. Then he said to
them: "These are the messengers of the King of the Arabs to the chief of the Bulgars, and I should
not let them pass without taking counsel with you."
Then Tarhan spoke: "This is a matter that we have never yet seen. Never has the ambassador of the
Sultan traveled through our country since we and our ancestors have been here. My feeling is that
the Sultan is playing us a trick. These men he really sent to the Hazars to stir them up against
us. The best is to hew these ambassadors in twain and we shall take all they have."
Another counselor said: "No, we should rather take what they have and leave them naked so that
they may return thither whence they came."
And another said: "No, we have captives with the King of the Hazars, so we ought to send these men
to ransom them."
They kept discussing these matters among themselves for seven days, while we were in a situation
similar to death, until they agreed to open the road and let us pass. We gave to Tarhan as a
garment of honor two caftans from Merv and also pepper, millet, and some sheets of bread.
And we traveled forth until we came to the river Bagindi. There we took our skin boats which had
been made from camel hides, spread them out, and loaded the goods from the Turkish camels. When
each boat was full, a group of five, six, or four men sat in them. They took birchwood branches in
their hands and used them like oars and kept on rowing while the water carried the boat down and
spun it around. Finally we got across. With regard to the horses and camels, they came swimming
across.
It is absolutely necessary when crossing a river that first of all a group of warriors with
weapons should be transported across before any of the caravan, in order that a vanguard be
established to prevent attack by Baskirs while the main body is crossing the river.
Thus we crossed the river Bagindi, and then the river called Gam, in the same way. Then the Odil,
then the Adrn, then the Wars, then the Ahti, then the Wbna. All these are big rivers.
Then we arrived at the Pecenegs. These had encamped by a still lake like the sea. They are dark
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brown, powerful people and the men shave their beards. They are poor in contrast to the Oguz, for
I saw men among the Oguz who possessed 10,000 horses and 100,000 sheep. But the Pecenegs are poor,
and we remained only a day with them.
Then we started out and came to the river Gayih. This is the largest, widest, swiftest that we
saw. Verily I saw how a skin boat overturned in it, and those on it were drowned. Many of the
company perished and a number of the camels and horses were drowned. We crossed the river with
difficulty. Then we went a few days farther on and crossed the river Gaha, then the river Azhn,
then the Bagag, then the Smur, then the Knal, then the Sub, and then the river Kiglu. At length we
arrived in the land of the Baskirs.
The Yakut manuscript contains a short description of Ibn Fadlan's stay among the Baskirs; many
scholars question the authenticity of these passages. The actual descriptions are unusually vague
and tedious, consisting chiefly of lists of the chiefs and nobles encountered. Ibn Fadlan himself
suggests the Baskirs are not worth bothering with, an uncharacteristic statement from this
relentlessly curious traveler.
At length we left the land of the Baskirs, and crossed the river Germsan, the river Urn, the river
Urm, then the river Wtig, the river Nbasnh, then the river Gawsin. Between the rivers that we
mention, the distance is a journey of two, three, or four days in each case.
Then we came to the land of the Bulgars, which begins at the shore of the river Volga.
FIRST CONTACT WITH THE NORTHMEN
I SAW WITH MY OWN EYES HOW THE NORTHMEN HAD arrived with their wares, and pitched their camp along
the Volga. Never did I see a people so gigantic: they are tall as palm trees, and florid and ruddy
in complexion. They wear neither camisoles nor caftans, but the men among them wear a garment of
rough cloth, which is thrown over one side, so that one hand remains free.
Every Northman carries an axe, a dagger, and a sword, and without these weapons they are never
seen. Their swords are broad, with wavy lines, and of Frankish make. From the tip of the
fingernails to the neck, each man of them is tattooed with pictures of trees, living beings, and
other things.
The women carry, fastened to their breast, a little case of iron, copper, silver, or gold,
according to the wealth and resources of their husbands. Fastened to the case they wear a ring,
and upon that a dagger, all attached to their breast. About their necks they wear gold and silver
chains.
They are the filthiest race that God ever created. They do not wipe themselves after going to
stool, or wash themselves after a nocturnal pollution, any more than if they were wild asses.
They come from their own country, anchor their ships in the Volga, which is a great river, and
build large wooden houses on its banks. In every such house there live ten or twenty, more or
fewer. Each man has a couch, where he sits with the beautiful girls he has for sale. He is as
likely as not to enjoy one of them while a friend looks on. At times several of them will be thus
engaged at the same moment, each in full view of the others.
Now and again, a merchant will resort to a house to purchase a girl, and find her master thus
embracing her, and not giving over until he has fully had his will; in this there is thought
nothing remarkable.
Every morning a slave girl comes and brings a tub of water and places it before her master. He
proceeds to wash his face and hands, and then his hair, combing it over the vessel. Thereupon he
blows his nose, and spits into the tub, and, leaving no dirt behind, conveys it all into this
water. When he has finished, the girl carries the tub to the man next to him, who does the same.
Thus she continues carrying the tub from one to another, till each of those who are in the house
has blown his nose and spit into the tub, and washed his face and hair.
This is the normal way of things among the Northmen, as I have seen with my own eyes. Yet at the
period of our arrival among them, there was some discontent among the giant people, the nature of
which was thus:
Their principal chieftain, a man of the name Wyglif, had fallen ill, and was set up in a sick-tent
at a distance from the camp, with bread and water. No one approached or spoke to him, or visited
him the whole time. No slaves nurtured him, for the Northmen believe that a man must recover from
any sickness according to his own strength. Many among them believed that Wyglif would never
return to join them in the camp, but instead would die.
Now, one of their number, a young noble called Buliwyf, was chosen to be their new leader, but he
was not accepted while the sick chieftain still lived. This was the cause of uneasiness, at the
time of our arrival. Yet also there was no aspect of sorrow or weeping among the people encamped
on the Volga.
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The Northmen place great importance on the duty of the host. They greet every visitor with warmth
and hospitality, much food and clothing, and the earls and nobles compete for the honor of the
greatest hospitality. The party of our caravan was brought before Buliwyf and a great feast was
given us. Over this Buliwyf himself presided, and I saw him to be a tall man, and strong, with
skin and hair and beard of pure white. He had the bearing of a leader.
Recognizing the honor of the feast, our party made a show of eating, yet the food was vile and the
manner of the feast contained much throwing of food and drink, and great laughing and merriment.
It was common in the middle of this rude banquet for an earl to disport with a slave girl in full
view of his fellows.
Seeing this, I turned away and said, "I beg God's pardon," and the Northmen laughed much at my
discomfiture. One of their number translated for me that they believe God looks favorably upon
such open pleasures. He said to me, "You Arabs are like old women, you tremble at the sight of
life."
I said in answer, "I am a guest among you, and Allah shall lead me to righteousness."
This was reason for further laughter, but I do not know for what cause they should find a joke.
The custom of the Northmen reveres the life of war. Verily, these huge men fight continually; they
are never at peace, neither among themselves nor among different tribes of their kind. They sing
songs of their warfare and bravery, and believe that the death of a warrior is the highest honor.
At the banquet of Buliwyf, a member of their kind sang a song of bravery and battle that was much
enjoyed, though little attended. The strong drink of the Northmen soon renders them as animals and
stray asses; in the midst of the song there was ejaculation and also mortal combat over some
intoxicated quarrel of two warriors. The bard did not cease his song through all these events;
verily I saw flying blood spatter his face, and yet he wiped it away without a pause in his
singing.
This impressed me greatly.
Now it happened that this Buliwyf, who was drunk as the rest, commanded that I should sing a song
for them. He was most insistent. Not wishing to anger him, I recited from the Koran, with the
translator repeating my words in their Norse tongue. I was received no better than their own
minstrel, and afterward I asked the forgiveness of Allah for the treatment of His holy words, and
also for the translation, which I sensed to be thoughtless, for in truth the translator was
himself drunk.
We had stayed two days among the Northmen, and on the morning we planned to leave, we were told by
the translator that the chieftain Wyglif had died. I sought to witness what then befell.
First, they laid him in his grave, over which a roof was erected, for the space of ten days, until
they had completed the cutting and sewing of his clothes. They also brought together his goods,
and divided them into three parts. The first of these is for his family; the second is expended
for the garments they make; and with the third they purchase strong drink, against the day when a
girl resigns herself to death, and is burned with her master.
To the use of wine they abandon themselves in mad fashion, drinking it day and night, as I have
already said. Not seldom does one die with a cup in his hand.
The family of Wyglif asked of all his girls and pages, "Which of you will die with him?" Then one
of them answered, "I." From the time she uttered that word, she was no longer free; should she
wish to draw back, she is not permitted.
The girl who so spoke was then committed to two other girls, who were to keep watch over her,
accompany her wherever she went, and even, on occasion, wash her feet. The people occupied
themselves with the dead man—cutting out the clothes for him, and preparing whatever else was
needful. During the whole of this period, the girl gave herself over to drinking and singing, and
was cheerful and gay.
During this time, Buliwyf, the noble who would next be king or chieftain, found a rival whose name
was Thorkel. Him I did not know, but he was ugly and foul, a dark man among this ruddy fair race.
He plotted to be chieftain himself. All this I learned from the translator, for there was no
outward sign in the funeral preparations that anything was not according to custom.
Buliwyf himself did not direct the preparations, for he was not of the family of Wyglif, and it is
the rule that the family prepares for the funeral. Buliwyf joined the general merriment and
celebration, and acted no part of kingly conduct, except during the banquets of the night, when he
sat in the high seat that was reserved to the king.
This was the manner of his sitting: when a Northman is truly king, he sits at the head of the
table in a large stone chair with stone arms. Such was the chair of Wyglif, but Buliwyf did not
sit in it as a normal man would sit. Instead he sat upon one arm, a position from which he fell
when he drank overmuch, or laughed with great excess. It was the custom that he could not sit in
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