PRESTER JOHN
An early account, communicated probably by travelling merchants,
of a Lama or spiritual chief among the Tartars, seems to have
occasioned in Europe the report of a Presbyter or Prester John, a
Christian pontiff resident in Upper Asia. The Pope sent a mission
in search of him, as did also Louis IX. of France, some years
later, but both missions were unsuccessful, though the small
communities of Nestorian Christians, which they did find, served
to keep up the belief in Europe that such a personage did exist
somewhere in the East. At last in the fifteenth century, a
Portuguese traveller, Pedro Covilham, happening to hear that there
was a Christian prince in the country of the Abessines
(Abyssinia), not far from the Red Sea, concluded that this must be
the true Prester John. He accordingly went thither, and penetrated
to the court of the king, whom he calls Negus. Milton alludes to
him in "Paradise Lost," Book XI., where, describing Adam's vision
of his descendants in their various nations and cities, scattered
over the face of the earth, he says,--
"... Nor did his eyes not ken
Th' empire of Negus, to his utmost port,
Ercoco, and the less maritime kings,
Mombaza and Quiloa and Melind."
CHAPTER XXXVIII
NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY--VALHALLA--THE VALKYRIOR
NORTHERN MYTHOLOGY
The stories which have engaged our attention thus far relate to
the mythology of southern regions.
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