#bulghar

Jebe and Subutai: The Kalka River, 1223

Today, we look at one of the most famous victories of the Mongols: the Kalka River, 1223. Alongside is a healthy dose of historiography, relating to the notion of a Mongol-Venetian alliance dating to this episode, and the death of Jebe Noyan. And you better watch that Mongol-Venetian segment, because somehow that took the longest part to research out of all this. Next time we look at the Volga Bulghar encounter. There are some primary sources I am still hoping to track down and look through, and I want to discuss historigraphy, and why that battle is so often forgotten, so I decided to do it separately from this.

 Part 1: Jebe and Subutai: Pursuit of the Shah and the Caucasus: https://youtu.be/Q-vJU_cIiL0 

 Translations of the Chronicle of Novgorod: http://faculty.washington.edu/dwaugh/rus/texts/MF1914.pdf see pages 64-66. A little dated (it is from 1914, and in their introduction they refer to white people as 'better races extending civilization across Siberia' or something like that. Classy!)

Giants. Real -isawitwithmyowneyes- Giants.

Ibn Fadlan's travels are fascinating and frought with danger but otherwise mundane. Until, after spending some time with the Bulghar one of his travelling companions asks,

'Hey did I ever tell you about the giant?'

'dude what!?'

'When you talk to the king ask him about it... haha yeah it was really fucked up'.

Ibn Fadlan follows up on this and receives the full story from the king.

A group of merchants in his lands came upon a man, "...of such a kind that if he belonged to a people dwelling near us there would be no place for us in these lands, we would have to emigrate". They report it and the king himself comes to see post-haste verifying,

"...judging by the length of my own forearm, he was twelve cubits tall. He had a head the size of the biggest cooking pot there ever was, a nose more than a span long, huge eyes, and fingers each 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." ~Ja'far King of the Bulghar in Ibn Fadlan

They bring the giant to their settlement and offer hospitality. Ja'far sends a letter to their northerly neighbours, the Wisu, for what they know. They say he is of Gog and Magog, the Quranic land of giants beyond the north where even Alexander the Great dared not campaign.

Children drop dead upon seeing the terrifying man, pregnant women miscarry, and when he grabs hold of another, they are crushed in his grasp.

'...so like we had to kill him, right? Hang him from a tree and try to forget the entire thing. Yeah, no, his skeleton is still there. I can show you but I'm sure as hell not getting near it.'

"I saw his head. It was like a great beehive. His ribs were like the stalk of a date cluster and the bones of his legs and arms were enormous too." ~Ibn Fadlan