About Worlds, How They Become Lost and Occasionally Found
Quite a while ago, I agreed to illustrate a history book.
&srThe project sounded very promising: a book of worlds, and lost ones to boot. Twenty-four in all, a mix of potsherds and parables, with twelve historical worlds, and twelve worlds of myth and legend.
Definitely too interesting to pass up.
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So, I agreed to take it on. When I asked who was doing the text, I was told that an author had not yet been chosen, so I said “Well, I’d love to try.” So I did.
I quite like history, as it’s all about what we think happened and why, as well as what it means to us now and how we are to retell it. Last evening I wandered through one of those huge, thorough and weightily lavish Time-Life books called The Age of the Renaissance (published in 1967) and, on a whim, looked in the index under S for “slavery”. No mention of it, which, considering that in most city-states of the Italian Renaissance, anywhere up to one third of the population might be domestic slaves, is really a rather large topic to pass on. (The Italian Renaissance was the period that Europeans simultaneously discovered humanism and rediscovered slavery.) So history is more about what we do with it, and why we feel the need to revisit continually, which I most happily did.
The first thing I did was buy and borrow a lot of books. I read half a dozen on Mohenjo-daro (about which I had never even heard before that); they ranged from the scientifically dry to offhand dismissals of the whole culture as basically boring because they built straightforward houses of bricks with sewers and straight streets. Worse than that, they didn’t leave a note when they disappeared, so invading barbarians were brought in to give them a sendoff. (Those barbarians have since been ushered back out in exchange for climate change and fickle river courses.) Cahokia was also a discovery for me. I read several books on Schliemann’s odyssey to discover Troy, and wanted badly to believe the tales of a wide-eyed boy being read the Illiad, until it all appeared clearly apocryphal and the references all led back to accounts written by Schliemann himself. Though rather less exciting, it did shed a light on his motivations, which oscillated between myth-realization and covetousness, but his flight from Troy with “Agamemnon’s Treasure” is true cloak-and-dagger stuff. I discovered the curious juxtaposition of Knossos and Art Nouveau under the able brushes of a Swiss artist employed by Sir Arthur Evans, the bigger-than-fiction race for Timbuktu to claim the Geographical Society prize, the astonishing long and perilous crusade of Vasco da Gama’s sons in Abyssinia searching for Prester John. I devoured biographies of Belzoni, Burckhardt, Lang, Clapperton, Park and other unfortunate seekers of Timbuktu. I read all the nutty literature I could find on the Hollow Earth, Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria and many more. I dutifully read Chatwin’s Songlines, before realizing I wasn’t going to understand the oldest living culture any better than he did. I purchased shelffulls of books and filled them with protruding post-its. (Of all the places I visited in books, I have only been to one: Persepolis. I would love to visit them all.)
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I must say that the writing was made easy for me, with my editor Carron Brown assuming the task of chopping my texts to size. (It is a picture book, destined for young people after all.) So, I was able to write however much I felt was needed to capture the interest of the subject, without worrying about writing too much. After Carron’s prudent and occasionally vigorous pruning, I would simply go back through and make sure there were no inconsistencies. I was also assisted by Neil Philip, who has written hundreds of wonderful non-fiction books on all manner of subjects, who graciously put his encyclopaedic knowledge at my disposal to make sure that I missed nothing of great importance in worlds with which I was less familiar, and afterwords would proof my texts to make sure I had said nothing totally wrong or simply stupid. Senior designer Jane Tassie oversaw the book as a whole and all the little fiddly bits, and my dear agents in New York and above all in London tirelessly and dutifully sent on all the books that internet booksellers would not send overseas. And loads of other people lent me books, took photos for me abroad, let me a unicorn’s horn and generally helped enormously.
Thus I was free to pursue all avenues that piqued my interest, whether they ended up in the book or not. (For the section on Thebes, I spent ages figuring out what year it was in the year 1 AD in every calendar I could find – Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Persian, Jewish, and many others. I suspected it would get edited out, and it did, but I learned a lot about calendars.)
Perhaps the best part was rekindling an interest in nearly everything, Absorbing considerable amounts of material and distilling the essence of it in a manner that will hopefully not only encourage young people to read it, but to read more. It stirred up a lot of memories. Mostly memories of how boring history was when I first encountered it, and how long it took me recover from that. The book was written with that young pupil in mind, uncomfortably shifting on a hard school seat, excruciatingly bored by a professor who transformed history into an irksome chore.
And, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
So, with the permission of the editor, here is one of the texts, in a form less abridged than in the book itself:
THE KINGDOM OF PRESTER JOHN
Venice, September 27th, 1177. Pope Alexander III is writing a letter.
It begins : carissimo in Christo filio Iohanni, illustri et magnifico Indorum regi… « to his dearest son in Christ, John, illustrious and magnificent King of the Indians… »
It is addressed to Prester John, Priest-King of a mysterious and powerful Christian kingdom believed to be in the fabled steppes of Central Asia. The Pope confided the letter to his personal physician, Magister Philippus, who dutifully set out eastward to deliver it. He was never heard from again.
Who was this king, so formidable that the Pope would write to him personally ? For several centuries, the kingdoms of Europe would dream and hope in vain of locating this lost Asian realm, before the dream finally faded four centuries later on the high plateaus of Abyssinia.
It all started with a letter.
In 1165 a mysterious parchment began to circulate through Europe. Originally addressed to Manuel Commenus, Emperor of Byzantium, who thoughtfully sent copies to the Pope and to Frederick Barbarossa, the Holy Roman Emporer, it began : “I Johannes the Presbyter, Lord of Lords, am superior in virtue, riches and power to all who walk under heaven. Seventy-two kings pay tribute to us. Our might prevails in the three Indies, and our lands extend all the way to the farthest Indies where the body of Saint Thomas the Apostle lies.”
The letter went to list the marvels of the kingdom, home to « … tigers, hyenas, wild horses, wild oxen and wild men, horned men, one-yed men, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, giants… » Thirty thousand people ate at his table each day, the table was made of emerald supported on columns of amythest. His palace had windows of crystal, his kingdom rivers of precious stones. No venomous serpent dared enter the Kingdom of Prester John. The letter concludes : « If you can count the stars of the sky and the sands fo the sea, you will be able to judgethereby the vastness of our realm and our power. »
If only one tenth was true, then it was certainly a land of marvels. But where was it ? And how to find it ?
In the Middle Ages, « India » or «the Indies » was not the precise geographical term we know today and traveller’s tales of faraway kingdoms were taken at face value. After all, popular legend did tell of the voyage of Saint Thomas to India, where his tomb still worked miracles for those who could find it. Nestorius, a Syrian-born priest, had spread Christianity in the East, as far as Persia, in the 5th century. Nestorian Christian communities still existed eight centuries later across Asia as far as China. The world was vast, and giraffes and elephants considered no more fabulous than unicorns and dragons. A lost Christain kingdom was certainly as plausible.
Trade and communication with Asia and the Middle East had been disrupted by recent Saracen conquests. Trade routes were blocked. The fragile kingdoms the Crusaders had carved out in the Holy Land were crumbling from inner strife and under the assaults of the Muslim nations. A curtain was drawn across the world, separating East from West. A Christian ally in those troubled times would have been welcomed with gratitude.
Then, like a storm out of a clear sky the Mongols swept across Asia. They reached Europe, threatening Hungary and Poland, and as suddenly and mysteriously turned back. Ruthless as they were to all those in their path, the Mongols were tolerant of all religions, and their conquests reopened the doors to travellers. Envoys were dispatched once more to find the Kingdom of Prester John.
In 1246, John de Piano Carpini reached the court of Kuyuk, a grandson of Ghenghis Khan, but returned with little news of the mysterious monarch.
In 1253 William of Ruysbruck also reached Mongolia, where he encountered Mangu, Kuyuk’s successor, but found no more news.
Marco Polo, when he returned from his voyage of 25 years to Cathay, reported that there had once been a ruler called Prester John, but that he had died in battle a century before.
Another traveller, Odric of Pordenone, returned to Venice in 1330, after a voyage of fourteen years as far as China, Java and Borneo. Gifted with a keen eye, he described in detail the lands through which he travelled. Of Prester John he said « But as regards him not one hundredth part is true of what is told of him… »
But then, if Prester John was not to be found in Asia, where was he ?
The search continued. It would take one unexpected and final turn. A century and a half after the last news of Prester John, the Portuguese would finally find him.
Prince Henry the Navigator was born in 1394, the third son of King John I of Portugal and his English wife, Philippa of Lancaster. Under Henry’s personal supervision, the Portuguese launched expedition after expedition down the coast of Africa, seeking passage to the east. In his observatory of Cape Sagres, built on a promontory on the westernmost point of Europe, Henry would sift through reports, rewarding even his unsuccessful captains, encouraging them to push farther south. While seeking to expand Portugal’s horizons in all directions, he was determined to sail down the west coast of Africa until reaching the end of that unexplored continent, then turning east to find the land of Prester John, opening the sea road to India. Prince Henry died in 1460, but his successors carried on.
The Açores and the Canary Islands were already discovered and colonized before Henry’s death. A Portuguese vessel crossed the Equator in 1471. A stone pillar was erected by Diago Cao near the Congo River in 1486. Two years later, Batholomew Dias, after fighting a relentless storm for 13 days, rounded the long-awaited cape at the southern tip of Africa. He named it the Cape of Tempests, we know it today as the Cape of Good Hope.
In 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed up the east coast of the continent and reached Calicut (present-day Calcutta), and soon the Portuguese had established coastal fortresses in India and East Africa. The interior of the so-called dark continent, however, remained a land of legends. In 1519, Alphonso de Albuquerque, chief captain of the Portuguese fleet, sent envoys inland, to the lofty volcanic plateaus of Abyssinia.
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They did not find the fabulous kingdom they had so long imagined, but they did find a Christian king. At last, in 1533, the envoy was able to announce triumphally in the Vatican that the legendary kingdom had at last been found, and that he had seen Prester John with his own eyes. His plates were not made of gold, his table not made of emerald and his name was Lebna Dengel. But Christian he was, even if he was of modest means and his people called themselves Nestorians. The Portuguese were nothing if not pragmatic, they resolved to help their new ally. Lebna Dengal died in 1540, fighting a losing war against his Muslim neighbours. In 1541, the sons of Vasco da Gama led an incredibly daring series of military expeditions across the high plateaus of Abyssinia against the enemies of Lebna Dengel’s widow. Often outnumbered twenty or more to one, the Portuguese, aided by cannon carried on their backs through impossible terrain, won battle after battle. In the end, though, reason prevailed. No grand Christian kingdom was to be saved on the rugged highlands of Ethiopia.
Finally, the expedition returned to the coast. The church of Rome, which had received detailed reports and had at last learned enough of the Nestorian’s beliefs, declared them heretical and promptly excommunicated them.
The dream faded back into the realm of legend, another earthly paradise long dreamed of, but never to be found.
In 1860, two Italian monks travelling through Abyssinia were told of a sacred relic, a flag which was carried in solemn procession once a year. It was a flag of Portugal. Another traveller told of a sword worshipped by a wild highland tribe, belonging to a legendary hero. It turned out to be a 16th-century Portuguese blade.
Who wrote the famous letter, though, since Prester John never existed ? Historians have been debating this point hotly for generations, and it is not likely we will ever know. Friedrich Zarncke, who analysed nearly 100 existing hand-written copies as well as printed versions (the original letter is lost) has suggested the anonymous author was a crusader or a monk, familiar with the Middle East, perhaps even living there. As to why it was written, it was possibly meant as a parable in a time when Church and State quarrelled bitterly, opposing to that the vision of an Earthly paradise where King and Pope were one and the same person.
Copies were made in many languages ; Prester John’s letter went on to become a sort of medieval « bestseller », successive copists not hesitating to embellish and add details as they pleased. Eventually, the letter itself became a work of fantasy.
LOST WORLDS
Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: Kingfisher (November 10, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0753461072
ISBN-13: 978-0753461075
THE RED EYE OF SAURON
Weta Limited has just released the Red Eye of Sauron as a pin. Richard Taylor made them going on a decade ago for the Weta crew during the shoot, and I managed to score a handful at one of the many premieres. (I was able to ask Richard, who is a sweet and generous fellow and happily slightly absent-minded, several times in a row if I could have one, and he would say “Didn’t I give you one?” to which I would demurely shake my head in response and get a couple more.) They are really quite nice, and now they are available from Weta, either via the site or at the Weta Cave.
