johnmandevilleoffical

[johnmandevilleoffical]

Paradise, and my Final Farewell.

"Paradise," you ask me? "How could you, John, have possibly seen PARADISE?" The truth, reader, is that I didn't. I know where it is, east of India, but no man can know what lies inside, because none exist who are worthy. But I know this: It is the highest place on earth, touching the moon. It was the only part of the old earth to survive Noah's Flood. Rivers flow from it, as I have mentioned many times. So many so that most of the water on earth flows from it. Many men have tried to see it up close, and all who have have died. I definetely didn't see every country in the world. I couldn't have, even if I tried. I didn't even get to talk about all of the countries I went to, because there was just so much that I saw. There are plenty of countries where people don't even speak- but those who can't do, at least, know of the Holy Bible, for it transcends all tongues. I am back in Europe now, and on my way home back to FEngland, I stopped by The Vatican to show my accounts of my travels to The Pope. He and his advisors are going to help me to edit and expand my records, so that they can be turned into a proper tome for the education of others. It is an honor, really!

Forgive me, if at the end, I sound tired. I traveled for 34 years, after all. I'm going to use the rest of my time on this mortal coil to rest. If you have read to the end of this, I have one request of you. Pray for me, for God to forgive my sins, and I shall do the same for you. Amen!

[johnmandevilleoffical]

Greetings Sir John, I would be grateful if you relayed the story of how you were knighted, and how you came to merit the good graces of the king. I ask as a fellow squire. What, moreover, was the most wondrous sight you ever met with on your travels?

As I am almost home, I will answer your question how I can. ... I think my favorite thing was The Sultan's Palace near the beginning, before everything began to go wrong and I saw all of the terrible terrible sin in the world. Back when it was just me and my battle brother, hanging out in his palace, having fun together.... I hope I can see him again someday. Oh I also really liked the apples with jesus in them

[johnmandevilleoffical]

novitiates these days only want one thing and it's to sing melisma in the florid organum. all im saying is what's wrong with some classic monophony?

You. You get it.

[johnmandevilleoffical]

What do you think of those damned sodomites?

They fell in the Dead Sea idk what else to say <3

[johnmandevilleoffical]

HELL ON EARTH AND HEAVEN ON EARTH!!!

THEY WERE SO DIFFERENT GUYS I KNOW EVERYTHING NOW!!!! SO right off of India was this terrifying place called The Vale Perilous, and I WENT THROUGH IT! It's actually full of ACTUAL DEVILS, and they eat and kill people and try to tempt you with precious gems and the middle of it is this gigantic devil head poking out of the crust of the earth that people die just from looking at so it's surrounded by just so many unrotting corpses!!! "But John!" You may be screaming, "If people die there, how am I reading your words right now?!" And the answer is that I AM A GOOD CHRISTIAN BOY! My faith was strong enough to protect me! As me and my party walked in we sung a mass, and only five people sucummed and died! Oh also just beyond it is another island where 30 foot tall giants eat raw flesh and only wear skins. And there was another island I passed where people think taking a woman's virginity kills you so they hire other men to do it. And then, of course HEAVEN on earth! Oh, it's wonderful! It's an island called Bragman, where everyone is good and no one lies. That's right! There are no liars, prostitutes, or murderers at all! And because everyone there is so wonderful and such devout Christians, nothing bad ever happens there, by the will of God. At one point, King Alexander really wanted to take them over, but they sent him a letter explaining to him that they had nothing to offer him and were only happy because they tried their best to be good, and he felt so bad that he never invaded them because it would have been the biggest sin in the world. There was also Gynosophe, which was kind of like Bragman except everyone was naked. They also had a run in with King Alexander, where they asked him why he acted so high and mighty and if they could make them immortal because that's the only way to explain his behavior, and he felt so bad he left them forever. They don't have a bible, which I would normally be very mad about, but it's okay because they actually follow every rule within it anyways, and even know about the miracles of Mary and Jesus! I'm almost home. Almost home. Almost home.

[johnmandevilleoffical]

Canto XXIII - The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Gustave Doré, 1866

[johnmandevilleoffical]

India... again! Woo!

I'm going through India again as I make my way back home, and honestly I like it better than I remembered??? For one, now I've met the emperor, who's really cool actually! His name is Prester John, and he's really rich- not QUITE as rich as The Great Khan, but only because India is too far away to conveniently trade with, and because their sea is full of these strange rocks that steal all your iron so all the nails come out of your ship and then you sink. It's not much easier to get here by land, either, because there's so little to eat- you have to eat basically just rice for the entire year it takes to get here from Europe :/ But they do have good relationships with The Great Khan actually- his wife is best friends with The Great Khan's daughter, and vice versa too! Prester John is also a Christian, just not with the exact same scripture as us, so he's cool and won't go to Hell. He also has a really cool palace in Susa made of sardonyx and ivory and all these other super cool rare gems! Super weird thing I found that I didn't hear about the first time I passed through India- they have a Gravely Sea? It's literally just Gravel with no water but it has a current like water and also fish in it like water. There's also a nearby mountain that floods gems into it straight from Paradise which is cool! And that's in the really spooky Indian Desert, which has fruit trees created as tricks by The Fae and these weird people who don't talk and just oink like pigs which made me uncomfy. Last but not least is the island of Mistorak, which was created by this guy Gatholonabes to look like Paradise, with all these herbs and fruits and wells of milk and honey and wine and 15 year old kids dressed like angels running around. He created it to trick knights into serving him with the promise they would get to live there, but they rebelled against him and overthrew him and now everything on the island is just gone. I didn't like that part :(

[johnmandevilleoffical]

Steve McCurry: Jammu and Kashmir, India (1999)

[johnmandevilleoffical]

A different list, because I need to mix it up

Alright, Persia first! It had cool geography, I'll give it that. It's touched by the river Pison, which flows out of Paradise, as well as the Caspian Sea, and the deserts of India. I didn't like Armenia because it touches Alexandria which may I remind you is the LITERAL GATES OF HELL. Media is long but not big enough to be important. Georgia has TWO christian kings! But their power is muted due to having to listen to the stupid Great Khan so that goes nowhere :/ Abchaz has a province that just has... no light? Like, at all? It's aparently a miracle from God in order to protect the Christians who live there from the false idols of Persia, so I guess I should be happy for them. After all, Christians need protection because if it wasn't for our sin, we would have taken over the entire world by now with our superiority! Caldihe had this really good fruit that has a weird little beast inside of it that you eat along with the fruit, which I ate and have to admit it tasted pretty good. There are also 22 kings living within the Caspian Mountains here because King Alexander prayed to God to trap them there, and they don't try to escape because no one else alive speaks their language so it would be worthless for them to try. But someday the kings will escape from a fox digging a hole in the mountain, and that'll happen when the Antichrist is born. There are also some Jews who live around there and are really good friends with the Amazonians. So good for them. I gotta pass through India again to get home, so I'll tell you about that when I go back!

[johnmandevilleoffical]

THE GREAT KHAN!!!

I finally made it to CATHAY, THE LAND OF MERCHANTS AND HOME OF THE GREAT KHAN! Yes, that guy! That man! That conquering boy! Where to even start about The Great Chan...? Well the first things I learn about was his palace and his wives. In that he has three wives that he ranks by which is his favorite and has a really cool gigantic palace all made of gold and full of actual golden geese and swans and stuff that dance for him because that's just how cool and powerful he is!

Of course, this isn't the first Great Khan- he's longgg dead. After all, his curse was set upon him for making fun of Noah's sons for sleeping naked. But the current Great Khan has quite a bit of noble proceedings surrounding him. He has lots of great feasts, from when he is first crowned to where his Idol speaks and grants miracles to his people. Thousands of people go to them, including 4,000 appointed barons, and thousands of other color coded nobles (I do love me a dress code!). The Great Khan has his cabinet of Philosophers sit beside him, with all their fancy scientific instruments- and they're in charge of testing the loyalty of the nobles by asking them to do silly random stuff like put their hands in their mouths, which is also supposed to grant them boons in life. I know this because I asked politely :3 Court Minstrels play alot of pretty music there with these really nice instruments made of gems, and then all of the nobles related to the Great Khan line up on horses to give him gifts, and then once they're done everyone else does it too. Alot of people gift him exotic animals, and in exchange the guests get served milk from them in their dishes! Yummy! One of my favorite things about The Great Khan is how many christians are in his court, but the sad part is that alot of them have to keep it a secret :( I just can't believe that he doesn't believe in the good word of the Lord! It's such a shame that such a cool guy is going to be tortured in hell someday. Then again Russia likes him so maybe he's already in hell.

Oh yeah the rest of the country. Uhhhh. Men and women dress the say except that married women wear golden feet on their heads. That was kinda weird. And they thing the greatest sin is pissing indoors so pissing spots are like, sacred. Seriously you can get killed for pissing inside. Even though they DONT WASH THEIR DISHES. I'm leaving I'm gonna explore some other places and then go home I think baiiiiiii <3

[johnmandevilleoffical]

On my way to a BIG chapter!

I'm about to land somewhere VERY important that I will absolutely talk your ears off about, but before I get there, I figured that I should tell you about a few places that I passed through on my way! I passed through a country called Dondun, which has some very,, icky practices. Whenever people get sick, they ask their idols if they will live or die, and if the idol tells them they will die- they MURDER THEM, then and there! AND THEN THEY EAT THEM!!! It's like, completely barbaric! The king of Dondun owns a few more islands of his own, too, which I shall list the monsters of for you here: -Giants with one big eyeball -People with no heads and with faces on their torsos -People with no faces and just holes in their heads -People with super big lips they can wear like a hat -Tiny people with a weird hole instead of a mouth -People with ears that go to their knees -People with horse feet -People who walk on 4 legs and are covered in feathers -"Hermaphrodites" -People who only walk on their knees WEIRD, right? I also made my way through Mancy, which was honestly the best place ever! There were so many good christian folks, and they were all so rich which is so deserved! It's capital is called Latorin, which was sooo much better than icky Paris :/ It has 12,000 bridges, and an order of friars that has this really neat tradition where they dress monkies up as beggars to gather donations! I love people who know how to have fun :) Stay tuned for my next update! Hint: it'll be GREAT!

[johnmandevilleoffical]

List time, List time!

Oh, I love making my lists! The time passes so fast, and time passes when you are having fun, so let's get into it! -Sumobor, where people burn themselves with hot irons to prove their nobility -Java, which is 2,000 miles long, and which is covered in silver and gold and grows all my favorite spices -Pathen, which has trees that grow bread, meal, honey, and poison, all of which can be obtained by hitting the desired tree with an axe. Also, a lake that nothing ever escapes from! -Calonak, where the king is given a different wife every night, and he owns 14,000 elephants specifically bred for war, and once a year all the fish in the world come into their bay for three whole days, which is a gift from God for all of the children that the King gifts to the world. They also have really big snails whose shells make great houses for people. -Caffolos, where sick people are abandoned in trees to die -Milke, where people drink blood -Tracoda, where the only thing that lives is cave beasts which eat shiny rocks and snakes -Nacumera, which is relatively normal except that the people worship a cow, are all naked, put a silver cow in their heads to show devotion, and they eat their prisoners of war -Silha, where there's only snakes, dragons, and cockodrills 5 fathoms in length, along with a mountain with a deep lake because Adam and Eve cried there for 100 years after they got kicked out of Paradise I love listssssss!

[johnmandevilleoffical]

Celestial clockwork globe. 1579, Vienna, Austria.

[johnmandevilleoffical]

News- The world is... wait for it...

Okay, so I went to this place called Lamary, where it's so hot that everyone is naked all the time, and people don't think anything of it because "God made us naked so it's fine", and there are no "wives" because every woman belongs to every man, and they're all cannibals even though they have plenty of avalible things to eat- ANYHOW, they don't have a North Star! They have a SOUTH star! Because the earth is ROUND!!! I know! It's so cool and I'm the first person to tell you this! And I can prove it, because I see this star get closer and closer the farther south I go! And I had to go south from England to get to Jerusalem, since Jerusalem is the center of the world, which we know for sure because on the equinox, there are no shadows in Jerusalem at all. People can actually go all the way around the round earth via the ocean, but that *does* get a bit tricky, because they end up thinking they've found somewhere new in the ocean, when really they've just landed right back where they started! Becuase there's nothing else out there, silly! And you can't fall off the earth either, because the earth is so heavy that if there WAS anything to fall into, the Earth itself would have fallen a long time ago. The earth is exactly 20,425 miles in circumfrance. I can't wait to learn more science on my trip :)

[johnmandevilleoffical]

I spoiled it with that cute cat, didn't I?

That's right, folks! I am in INDIA! The archipeligo of over 4000 islands, and where people are green! There's been alot of flooding here lately, because their tides are determined by saturn, unlike ours, which are based on the moon. But the Venecians who come here to trade don't seem to mind, so good for them. Ugh, but it's so hot here. People's balls literally drop to their knees because of how hot it is and they have to tie them back up to keep from hurting themselves. And people lie naked in rivers to try and help but that's gross and I don't like it. There's a place here I might check out later called Chana, where the people worship the sun and moon instead of gods. They also aparently know there is a god, but worship a golden ox instead? I'll tell you more once I've gotten to visit. One thing that scares me is that people in India don't have a specific doctrine that they worship like we do, which seems super strange to me. How do you know what will and what won't get you sent to hell if it isn't written down anywhere? There's another nearby place, too, called Mabaron where St. Thomas' body is, including the hand that he touched Jesus with, which the people here use to prove who's right and who's wrong in arguments, which seems very useful! They also have a golden idol for a very confusing "God of False Christians," and people actually take pilgrimages to it, and sacrifice animals, children, and even THEMSELVES to it!! They take massive offerings of gold to throw into a lake for it, and then when the church of the idol runs out of money, they TAKE THE MONEY FROM THE LAKE! I can't believe the dishonesty here! The monatary gain! From a CHURCH no less! India is getting scary I wanna go back to the Sultannnnn :((

[johnmandevilleoffical]

An Indian snow leopard photographed by Prasenjeet Yadav

[johnmandevilleoffical]

More short info-dumps! Yippe!

It seems you guys liked this style, so I'm going to do a little bit more of my lists in order to tell you about places I didn't spend much time in! Get ready! -The Land of Job, where after his suffering in The Bible, he died as a king at 248 years old. They have a food called "Angle Bread", which is pure white and very sweet, and doubles as a medicine, because it can purge the evil from someone's blood! -People asked about Amazonia, so I'll give you a bit more information! At one point they did have a King, but then every noble man in the country died in a terrible war, so the noble women killed every other man in the country to make it fair. They're so committed to everything about *war,* actually- they even cut off one breast each so they'll be better at shooting arrows! The HORROR!!! And they ELECT their queen based off of who in the country can fight best! -Ethiopia, where all the water is salt. Because of this, everyone in the country is constantly drunk, and they live very short lives. There are also some weird monsters there that look like normal people except they only have one gigantic foot on one leg and they have to hop everywhere. Ethiopia also has alot of diamonds, and just as many people who try to sell counterfeits- but I know how to not fall for these, because real diamonds never break! Therefore, in order to tell you are not being scammed, all you need to do is try to break the dimaonds! Alright, I think you guys will LOVE the next post I have! Anyone who can guess where I'm going now gets one prayer from me :)