In
Thomas More's book,
Utopia, The main narrator, who remains nameless, recounts a tale once told to him by a half remembered adventurer met with on his travels. This man, Raphael Hythloday was the original teller of the main tale of the book, a traveller with
Amerigo Vespucci recounting fantstic things seen on his travels.
The name is a pun, taken from the ancient Greek, it means 'The Horses Mouth' - implying sarcastically that whatever Hythloday said must have been true. Thomas More uses the device of hearsay once removed, to distance himself from anything said in the book that could be construed as heretical to the
Roman Catholic Church or treasonable to the court of
King Henry the eighth, who nineteen years after the book was published had him killed anyway, for a combination of both crimes.