THE SCENE: If you value “precision” in your accounts of pseudo-historical legendary events, then the Scottish chronicler John of Fordun just might be the man for you.
THE TEXT: Three thousand six hundred and eighty-nine years after the beginning of the world, in the five hundred and fifth year of the third Age, three hundred and thirty years before the taking of Troy, seven hundred and sixty years before the building of Rome, in the year 1510 B.C. (or as others put it—
“One thousand and five hundred years, and seventy, less one,
Before the birth, as I have found, of God’s incarnate Son,
Was Pharaoh, following the Jews, in the Red Sea Undone”)
The above-mentioned Pharaoh was swallowed up, with his army of 600 chariots, 50,000 horse, and 200,000 foot.
John of Fordun, Chronica Gentis Scotorum, 14th Century AD
