4 The Middle Ages

In the circumstances, it is not surprising that the Falashas became more the subject of legend than of history. As Ethiopia retired into its shell, surrounded by hostile neighbours, there was little occasion for travellers to visit the country. In the Christian world stories were told of the mysterious Prester John, a Christian king who ruled a mighty empire in the unknown heart of Africa. But it was not until the Age of Discovery, when the first Portuguese adventurers set foot in Ethiopia in the fifteenth century, that authentic reports were sent back to Europe, though they had little to say about the Jewish population.

The earliest known Jewish report to have survived came from the ninth-century traveller Eldad ha-Dani, who is considered by some scholars to have been a native of Yemen and, as his name indicates, associated himself with the tribe of Dan. He was celebrated in his day as a traveller and philologist and died in 890 while on a visit to Cordoba. Many tales were woven about his journeys and he wrote extensively about the lost ten tribes of Israel. He claimed that one of them, Dan, had migrated to Cush (Ethiopia) and, with the help of Naphthali, Asher and Gad, had