Lalibela was born in Roha in the second half of the twelfth century, the youngest son of the royal line of the Zagwe dynasty, which then ruled over much of northern Ethiopia. Despite several elder brothers he was destined for greatness from his earliest days. Not long after his birth, his mother found a swarm of bees around his crib and recalled an old belief that the animal world foretold important futures. She cried out: "The bees know that this child will become king."

But trials and tribulations followed. The ruling king feared for his throne and tried to have Lalibela murdered and persecutions continued for several years - culminating in a deadly potion that left the young prince in mortal sleep. During the three-day stupor, Lalibela was transported by angels to the first, second and third heavens where God told him not to worry but to return to Roha and build churches - the like of which the world had never seen before. God also told Lalibela how to design the churches, where to build them and how to decorate them.

Once he was crowned, he gathered masons, carpenters, tools, set down a scale of wages and purchased the land needed for the building. The churches are said to have been built with great speed because angels continued the work at night.

Many scoff at such apocryphal folklore. The Lalibela churches, however, silence the most cynical pedants. These towering edifices were hewn out of the solid, red volcanic tuff on which they stand. In consequence, they seem to be of superhuman creation - in scale, in workmanship and in concept. Close examination is required to appreciate the full extent of the achievement because, like medieval mysteries, much effort has been made to cloak their nature. Some lie almost completely hidden in deep trenches, while others stand in open quarried caves. A complex and bewildering labyrinth of tunnels and narrow passageways with offset crypts, grottoes and galleries connects them all - a cool, lichen- enshrouded, subterranean world, shaded and damp, silent but for the faint echoes of distant footfalls as priests and deacons go about their timeless business.

Four are completely free-standing, attached only to the surrounding rock by their bases. These are Beta Medhane Alem, the House of the Saviour of the World; Beta Ghenetta Mariam, the House of Mary; Beta Ammanuel, the House of Emanuel; and Beta Ghiorghis, the House of St George. Although their individual dimensions and configurations are extremely different, the churches are all built from great blocks of stone, sculptured to resemble normal buildings and wholly isolated within deep courtyards. They represent, as one authority has put it, "the ultimate in rock-church design.... One is amazed at the technical skill, the material resources and the continuity of effort which such vast undertakings imply".

Beta Medhane Alem is particularly striking. More than thirty-three meters long by twenty-three-and-a-half meters wide by eleven meters high it is the largest, surrounded by a colonnade that supports the projecting eaves of the low- pitched, saddle-backed roof. The interior is equally impressive: it has five aisles with flat ceilings, a nave with a barrel vault and eight bays - which are separated by a forest of twenty- eight massive columns. Polished for centuries by the pressure of countless feet, the stone floor reflects shafts of light from apertures in the walls high above.