Tenth-Century Sasquatch? July 3, 2016
Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval , trackback
***Thanks to Ed, an old friend of this blog, for sending this in and making the sasquatch connection***
Do we have evidence from the Urals for a Sasquatch like figure in the tenth century? No one seems to have made this connection before but consider the passage charitably before we drag out the sledge hammer of skepticism. The record comes from Ibn Fadlan, the tenth-century Arab geographer and traveller. It relates, probably, to the year 922.
Tikin told me that in the king’s lands [Bulghar on the Volga, about 800 miles from the Caspian] was a man of extraordinary size. When I arrived there, I asked the king about him. ‘Yes, he lived in our county, but he is dead. He was not one of our people, nor was he an ordinary man. His story is as follows. One day some merchants set out in the direction of the Itil River, as they were in the habit of doing. The river was in flood and had broken its banks. A day had scarcely passed when a group of these merchants came to me and said: ‘O king, we have seen swimming on the waters [of the Itil River, i.e. the Volga] a man of such a kind that if he belonged to the people dwelling near us there would be no place for us in these lands, but we would have to emigrate.’
Next the king gets involved. It is worth stressing that while Ibn Fadlan did not see the giant (alive), the man he talked to claimed to have, this is not friend of a friend stuff.
I set out on horseback with them and reached the river. I found myself face to face with the man. I saw that judging by the length of my own forearm, he was twelve cubits tall [c. eighteen feet tall?]. He had a head the size of the largest cooking pot, a nose more than a span long, huge eyes, and fingers more than a span in length. His appearance frightened me and I had the same feeling of terror as the others. We began to speak to him, but he did not speak to us and only stared.
The King now brings the giant home and tries to learn where he was from.
I had him taken to my residence and I wrote to the people of Wisu, who live three months’ distance from us, to ask for information about him. They wrote to me, informing that this man was one of the people of Gog and Magog. ‘They live three months from us. They are naked and the sea forms a barrier between us, for the live on the other shore. They couple together like beasts. God, All-high and All-powerful, causes a fish to come out of the sea for them each day. One of them comes with knife and cuts off a piece sufficient for himself and his family. If he takes more than he needs, his belly aches and so does the bellies of his family. When they have taken what they need, the fish turns round and dives back into the sea. They do this every day. Between us and them, there is the sea on one side and they are enclosed by mountains on the others. The Barrier also separates them from the gate by which they leave. When God, All-high and All-powerful wants to unleash them on civilized lands, He causes the Barrier to open and the level of the sea to drop and the fish to vanish’
Gog and Magog were Old Testament names, adopted into the Christian and Islamic tradition, and applied to out of the way peoples, particularly steppe nomads (a definition that works remarkably well here). There is no reason to take this information terribly serious and Ibn Fadlan does not explain why the king felt that the folk of Wisu would know anything about his monster pet. Wisu incidentally seems to refer to the lands around the river Kama.
And, of course, it all ends in tears. The king now describes what happened back at the palace.
He stayed with me for a time, but no child could look at him without dying and no pregnant woman without miscarrying. If he took hold of a man, his hands squeezed him until he killed him. When I realized that, I had him hung from a high tree until he died.
There are fantastical qualities then in this creature. However, we have the final proof, which rounds the story off. The detail about the bee-hive is fabulous.
[The King said] ‘If you want to see his bones and bones, I will go along with you and show them to you.’ ‘I would like very much to see them’, I answered. He rode with me into a great forest filled with immense trees and shoved me toward the tree under which had fallen his bones and head. I saw his head. It was like a great beehive. His ribs were like the stalks of a date cluster and his leg bones and arm bones also were enormous. I was astounded at the sight.”
Ibn Fadlan speaks, then, of an eyewitness, a Volga king, who describes his own encounter with a giant, a humanoid that was something like eighteen feet tall. It goes without saying that this cannot have been a human being: the tallest man in history was almost nine feet tall. The giant was brought to his court, with no mention of violence, and then killed because of its disruptive qualities. Ibn Fadlan himself sees the remains of the giant in the forest.
Possibilities.
a) Ibn Fadlan invented the story: some parts of his works have been called into question, much as, several centuries later, with Marco Polo.
b) The king was having fun with a curious Arab visitor: the bones could have been the remains of some remarkable animal, perhaps even a prehistoric animal, though note that the bones were on the forest floor, not apparently dug up. Note also that there may have been translation issues.
c) The story should be taken more or less at face value. At that point we have to ask whether c.1 this is a known species or c.2 an unknown species. Good luck with either of those! Note the lack of references to body hair.
Having read Ibn Fadlan over the years but being skeptical about physical humanoids existing in the wilds, Beach would prefer b) or c.1): but what animal… Any other opinions: drbeachcombing AT yahoo DOT com
Also just as an aside, it seems that Ibn Fadlan has been associated with Big Foot before, but over an invented or imagined passage.
10 Jul 2016: Norman gives some useful background on Gog and Magog (look out for George Bush in Yemeni)
