View Medieval Travel Lies As the western Roman empire declined
during the fourth and fifth centuries AD, Europe lost contact
with the rest of the world. Classical knowledge of the outside
world receded, and what emerged in its place was a peculiar
mixture of fact and fiction. European scholars inhabited the
lands to their east with unicorns, cyclops, and other fantastic
creatures. One persistent rumor spoke of the barbarian tribes of
Gog and Magog whom Alexander the Great had supposedly imprisoned
behind giant brass gates somewhere in the East. It was said that
the escape of Gog and Magog would signal the imminent end of the
world. With the gradual revival of commerce during the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Europeans once more began
to venture beyond their borders and returned to tell of what
they had seen. But these travellers, upon their return from
faraway lands, seldom gave what we would consider to be factual
accounts. Instead, they related bizarre stories that confirmed
the existence of the imag