Sailors from a great distance taken in by soothsayers (9)
I believe the answer is:
seafarers
'sailors' is the definition.
(seafarer is a kind of sailor)
'a great distance taken in by soothsayers' is the wordplay.
'a great distance' becomes 'afar' (synonyms).
'taken in by' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'soothsayers' becomes 'seers' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'afar' inserted into 'seers' is 'SEAFARERS'.
'from' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for seafarers that I've seen before include "Description fitting salts" , "Jack-tars, old salts" , "Mariners, sailors" .)