In the early years of the 16th-century, Ethiopia's regent, Eleni, sent an ambassador to Portugal to propose an alliance. She sent a man named Mateus. Unfortunately for Mateus, almost nobody believed him.
This is a story about Abū Zakariyyāʾ Yaḥyā ibn Ḥakam al-Bakrī al-Jayyānī, known also as al-Ghazāl (the Gazelle). It's the story of a 9th century poet on an embassy from the Emirate of Córdoba to a Viking ruler.