ABSTRACT
For the ancient European world, the east as seen (or imagined) and defined by Herodotus and the Greeks was a land of wonder. Facts and fiction began to be intertwined from this time onwards. The mixture of fact and fantasy that began to colour the ideas of the east naturally gave rise to an amazing number of stories. The east was a great many things to a great many people. So, depending on one’s point of view, this was the land where Jesus was born — the Holy Land — or the land of the Saracens (a little later), or the land of milk and honey, for its wealth, or the land of many wonders, not the least of which were its people and products. Given both the lack of knowledge and the consequent myths that emerged about the lands outside the (limited) known world, the number of stories that circulated about the wonders of the east is not surprising. This chapter examines some of these stories.
