Jack Weatherford

And so he was now suddenly...

this unusual situation was created where a child is going to be born to a kidnapped woman who's being held by strange people, the Mongols, they were not her people.

And he already had another wife or husband.

He had a wife named Xochitl.

He had at that time already one son.

Later he had another son with her.

It was a very odd situation.

And in fact, the father, Yasuke, wasn't even there.

when Temüjin was born.

He was off fighting the Tatars, and during this campaign against the Tatars, he killed two Tatars.

One of them was named Temüjin Uge, which is sort of person of iron, is what it means from the Turkic, but today a part of also Mongolian language.

So he came back, he had a baby, and he decided to name him Temujin, the person of iron, or Iron Man, we might call him.

After the man he killed.

So he has a kidnapped mother.

She's a second wife now.

Not a legal wife, but just a second kidnapped wife.

And he's named for someone his father just killed.

It was not an auspicious beginning,

And in fact, just episode after episode in his childhood was inauspicious.

The father and mother moved camp one time when he was quite young, and somehow they overlooked him and forgot him.