Note 12 — Chapter III · THE TIME OF TATAR DOMINATION

[At first the Russians had only very vague notions as to who this terrible enemy was. The old chronicler remarks briefly: “For our sins unknown people have appeared. No one knows who they are or whence they have come, or to what race and faith they belong. They are commonly called Tatars, but some call them Tauermen, and others Petchenegs. Who they really are is known only to God, and perhaps to wise men deeply read in books.” Some of these “wise men deeply read in books” supposed them to be the idolatrous Moabites who had in Old Testament times harassed God’s chosen people; whilst others thought that they must be the descendants of the men whom Gideon had driven out, of whom a reverent saint had prophesied that they would come in the latter days and conquer the whole earth, from the East even unto the Euphrates, and from the Tigris even unto the Black Sea.c]