Editing Children's Crusade (section)

===Traditional accounts===

There are a number of traditional stories of the Children's Crusade which share similar facts. A boy begins to preach in either France or Germany, claiming that he had been visited by Jesus, who instructed him to lead a [[crusade]] in order to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. Through a series of portents and miracles, he gains a following of up to 30,000 children. He leads his followers south towards the [[Mediterranean Sea]], in the belief that the sea would part on their arrival, which would allow him and his followers to walk to [[Jerusalem]]. This does not happen. Instead, two French merchants promise to take some children across the sea to the Holy Land. However, the children are either taken to the [[Tunisia]] in the [[Almohad Caliphate]], where they are sold into slavery by the merchants, or [[shipwreck|shipwrecked]] on [[San Pietro Island]] off [[Sardinia]].<ref name="Russell" />