THE SCENE: The Berber scholar Abu Hamid al-Andalusi describes the Yura people, who live on the Sea of Darkness, and are quite accustomed to extraordinary occurrence.
THE TEXT: In Yura, every human being needs a sword each year to throw into the Sea of Darkness, for only when they throw in swords does God make a great fish like a vast mountain come out the sea for them. This fish is pursued by another fish, many times greater, which seeks to devour it. The smaller fish, fleeing the greater, comes close to land and stops in place from which it cannot return to the open sea. Therefore, it stays there, while greater fish, since it cannot reach the smaller one, goes back to the sea.
Then the people of Yura get in their boats and, heading for the smaller fish, cut the flesh from its sides, without the fish moving or heeding them. They fill their houses with its flesh and climb up on its back, which is like a huge mountain. It stays with them for some time, during which they continue slicing off its flesh. All those who have thrown a sword into the sea take their share of the fish. When the water of the sea rises and the fish is lighter, it returns to the deep, having filled on hundred thousand houses or more with its flesh.
I was told in Bulghar that one year, they pierced the ear of one of these fish and, inserting a cable through the hole, drew it to land. Then they opened the ear of the fish and from within emerged a kind of girl, who looked like a human – white, with pink cheeks, black hair and plump buttocks, like the most attractive of women.
The people of Yura took her and drew her to land, while the creature struck her face, tore her hair and screamed. God had created for her in the middle of her body a kind of white skin like a thick, strong cloth, which went from her waist to her knees, covering her private parts and it was like a veil attached to her waist to hide her nakedness. They kept that girl among them until she died. Truly, the power of God on High knows no limits!
– The Travels of Abu Hamid al-Andalusi al-Gharnati
