Here there be no dragons: Maravilla in two fifteenth-century Spanish libros de viajes

Monsters, anthropomorphs, and marvels are common ingredients in medieval travel literature, and even narratives of real medieval journeys include these creatures, to the delight of the reading audience. At the beginning of the 15th century, two Castilian narratives of real journeys largely resist the impulse to marvel at monstrous beings, and instead marvel at the real world encountered in the journey itself.