Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders
I'm not so sure about traveling the Danube. Remember, the Slavs and Avars are pagans and may not take kindly to Christian pilgrims.
|
I think that's a misunderstanding. Pagans never hated Christians. Some pagans, by which I mean our ancestors, had the means and the opportunity to treat Christians like prey, the same way a wolf treats sheep as prey. So they did. But that wasn't because of hatred. It was about "hey, he has some silver which I could take from him, or hey, he has this cage-like structure filled with nubile chicks, which I could abduct and sell!"
Pilgrims who look like easy victims will be victimized by non-Abrahamics, when travelling through their lands. But pilgrims who travel in large groups, well armed or with well armed guards, and who are prepared to pay with silver for hospitality, will indeed get hospitality.
Another option is to not look particularly victimizable, and travel alone or in very small groups, and try to get hospitality for free, or pay with stories or a few hours of labour when you can't get it for free. But that requires knowing the local languages. You only risk getting enslaved if you're thought valuable as a slave (and mostly men are not worth enslaving at random - women, on the other hand, have intrinsic market value, for reasons that I hope are obvious).
Generally, though, my assumption would be that you want to reach the Mediterranean, by foot or by river, and then travel by ship to Jerusalem or at least some place where Moslems rule, because some of those might respect Christian pilgrims, and their lands will generally have more law & order than pagan lands. If at all possible you'd want to skip those.