Meat cured under the saddle
Editorial contextHere Schiltberger insists he saw it himself: on long journeys Tartars bleed their horses and cook and drink the blood, and they slice meat, salt it and ride on it under the saddle until it dries and softens. Every morning the khan drinks mare's milk from a golden cup on an empty stomach.
I myself have seen them bleed [their horses] and drink the blood after they have cooked it. … I have also seen when they are long on a journey, that they take a piece of flesh, cut it into slices, place it under the saddle, and ride on it, and eat it when they were hungry ; but they salt it first
About Tartars of the Golden Horde
A funeral like a wedding
Editorial contextHe describes the funeral of a young unmarried man: the body in his best clothes on a bier under a canopy, musicians and young people in finery, feasting and merrymaking at the grave while the parents weep, so that it becomes the wedding he never had. He adds firmly: 'All this I have seen.'
It is also the custom in the country, that when a young man, who has not had a wife, dies, he is dressed in his best clothes, and players carry him, and he is laid on a bier, and a canopy is placed over him.
About Peoples of Siberia called 'Ugine' (probably Uighur-influenced)
Keep in mind
On the same pages he calls these people Christians who worship a nativity picture; editor Neumann suggests they were Buddhists he mistook for Christians.
The Lord's Prayer in Tartar
Editorial contextSchiltberger ends his book with the Lord's Prayer written phonetically in Armenian and in 'Tartar', a rare early European sample of a Turkic language as a captive heard it. It begins 'Atha wysum' ('our father').
Roughly: 'Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come...' in a Turkic language.
Working translation
Original wording
This is the Tartar Pater Noster. Atha wysum chy chockta sen algusch ludur senung adung kel suii senung hauluchig belsun
About Turkic-speaking Tartars
Keep in mind
The phonetic spelling is his German ear's rendering; the translation given here is a rough gloss of the opening only.
Three tribes of the Great Tartars
Editorial contextSchiltberger names three tribes among the 'Great Tartars': Kayat, Inbu and Mugal. The editors identify these as the Kerait, the Uighurs and the Mongols, so he correctly grasped that the Horde was a mix of peoples with the Mongols as one part. He also notes that Russia paid tribute to the Tartar king.
Item, the kingdom of Rewschen, which is tributary to the Tartar king. It is to be noted, that there are three tribes amongst the Great Tartars. One is called Kayat, the other Inbu, the third Mugal.
About Great Tartars
Keep in mind
The tribe identifications (Kerait, Uighur) are the editor's footnotes.
Why 'Tartar' and not 'Tatar'?
Editorial contextIn a long note, the editor explains why he writes 'Tatar' rather than the manuscript's 'Tartar': Russians, Armenians and the peoples themselves say Tatar, and the extra 'r' came in Western Europe by association with Tartarus (he cites the story about St Louis). He also records the theory that the name goes back to a Chinese name for the Mongols.
The Russian word Tatarui, or Tatars, says Ralston … modified in Western Europe by a reference to Tartarus into Tartars, is now generally applied by Russian writers to what used to be the Turkish subjects of the Mongol Empire.
About Tatars / Tartars (the name itself)
Keep in mind
This is a 19th-century editor's discussion, not Schiltberger's own words.
Hairy wild people in Siberia
Editorial contextRiding with Edigü and Prince Chekre into 'Ibissibur' (this is one of the earliest uses of the name Siberia), Schiltberger heard of a mountain range that ends in a desert at the end of the earth, and of hairy wild people who eat grass. A captured wild man and woman were sent to Edigü. He also describes sled dogs as big as donkeys.
On the same mountain there are savages, who are not like other people, and they live there. They are covered all over the body with hair, except the hands and face, and run about like other wild beasts in the mountain, and also eat leaves and grass, and any thing they can find.
About Peoples of Siberia under Edigü's campaign
Keep in mind
The 'end of the earth' desert is what locals told him; the wild people may be his garbled view of forest peoples or a traveller's tale.
A widow warlord with four thousand women archers
Editorial contextA powerful Tartar widow named Sadur Melik came to Edigü with four thousand women and girls to avenge her husband. Her women rode to war with sword and bow like men. When the kinsman who had killed her husband was captured, she beheaded him herself. Schiltberger says he was there.
He was brought before the woman ; she ordered him to kneel, and drew her sword, and cut off his head at one blow, and said : " Now am I revenged." I was present there, and I also saw this.
About Tartars of the Golden Horde
Keep in mind
The number of women (four thousand, on p.37) is likely inflated.