(Hammer's Ilkhans, II. 143-144.)
The story has some resemblance to what Ibn Batuta relates of another
warlike Princess, Urduja, whom he professes to have visited in the
questionable kingdom of Tawalisi on his way to China: "I heard ... that
various sons of kings had sought Urduja's hand, but she always answered,
'I will marry no one but him who shall fight and conquer me'; so they all
avoided the trail, for fear of the shame of being beaten by her." (I.B.
IV. 253-254.) I have given reasons (Cathay, p. 520) for suspecting that
this lady with a Turkish name in the Indian Archipelago is a bit of
fiction. Possibly Ibn Batuta had heard the legend of King Kaidu's
daughter.
The story of Kaidu's daughter, and still more the parallel one from Ibn
Batuta, recall what Herodotus tells of the Sauromatae, who had married the
Amazons; that no girl was permitted to marry till she had killed an enemy
(IV. 117). They recall still more closely Brunhild, in the Nibelungen: -
- "a royal maiden who reigned beyond the sea:
From sunrise to the sundown no paragon had she.
All boundless as her beauty was her strength was peerless too,
And evil plight hung o'er the knight who dared her love to woo.
For he must try three bouts with her; the whirling spear to fling;
To pitch the massive stone; and then to follow with a spring;
And should he beat in every feat his wooing well has sped,
But he who fails must lose his love, and likewise lose his head."
CHAPTER V.
