With them came stories collected on their travels: tales of goblins and giants, fairy queens and woodland nymphs, unearthly phantoms, man-eating ogres and predatory ghouls.
Although CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the videos, it interviewed a local rebel spokesman this week who confirmed the heart-eating incident and said he had spoken to the man involved.
Two days after being bitten the man admitted himself to a hospital emergency department having developed necrotising fasciitis - the disease dubbed by the media as the flesh eating bug after it killed 22 people in England and Wales in 1994.