“Legendary lands and places are of various kinds and have only one characteristic in common: whether they depend on ancient legends whose origins are lost in the mists of time or whether they are an effect of a modern invention, they have created flows of belief.”- Umberto Eco, The Book of Legendary Lands

The flows of belief are strictly to the core derived from one gulp of air that is tastier and milder than roses’ perfume. What if to weave something that would transport us into the fallacy of an unknown nebula hovering around and yet appealing with secret smells and colors, foods and spices.

The utopian allure is greatly mystifying and powerless in the light of the real. Even the prosperous magic country of the beautiful and kind Phaeacians turned to shreds in the morning when Odysseus woke up to find himself in his beloved Ithaca.

“Often the object of a desire, when desire is transformed into hope, becomes more real than reality itself. Out of a hope in a possible future, many people are prepared to make enormous sacrifices, and maybe even die, led on by prophets, visionaries, charismatic preachers, and spellbinders who fire the minds of their followers with the vision of a future heaven on Earth (or elsewhere).”

Let the legendary land engulf you. Be drowned into it, breathe in the smells, the oddities and the illusion, sing to its music but then leave it. As one cannot buy the perfumes of Samarkand and prepare for the dreary winter.

Art – The Road to Samarkand by Thomas Thiermeyer.