Daniel the Traveller

He learned much of the regions from his three major excursions to the Dead Sea and Lower Jordan (which he compares to the Snov River), Bethlehem and Hebron, and Damascus.

[6] When coming to Jerusalem from Jaffa, he mentions that this was where ‘Saracens sally forth and kill travellers’, he also attested to several venerable sites that was ‘destroyed by the pagans’.

When going to Lake Tiberias, he dodged ‘fierce pagans who attack travellers at the river-fords’ and lions that roamed the countryside in ‘great numbers’.

He prayed for his life when he walked unescorted on the narrow pass between Mount Tabor and Nazareth as he was warned that local villagers do ‘kill travellers in those terrible mountains’.

[6] Daniel records that several of his friends from Kyiv and Old Novgorod were present with him at the Easter Eve miracle in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

[6] There were warriors, merchants, and earlier pilgrims who had travelled from the Kievan Rus to the outside world before the twelfth century; however, none left written records that have come down to the present day.

[6] Daniel's narratives are also important in the history of the Old East Slavic language and in the study of ritual and liturgy of the time (i.e. description of the Easter services in Jerusalem and the Descent of the Holy Fire).