favourable wind lasted for twelve days; after which they rowed, till they were exhausted. Presently a wind again sprang up, and they were carried along by it without knowing in which direction they were drifting.1

Before proceeding further, it will be well to draw attention to the distinction that exists between the Acta Sti. Brendani and the Navigatio Sti. Brendani, two very different documents.

The best Life is that in the so-called Kilkenny Book, in Marsh's Library, Dublin, and this has been printed by the Rev. P. F. Moran, bishop of Ossory, and afterwards Cardinal." There is an Irish Life in the Book of Lismore, published in Anecdota Oxoniensia (1890). A second Latin Acta is in the Codex Salamanticensis, cols. 113-154, but this is actually a Navigatio. A second Vita in the same Codex is in cols. 758-772, and this is a Life, as is also that in the Book of Lismore. The Life in the Kilkenny Book and the second Vita in the Salamanca Codex are free from the marvels contained in the Navigatio, with the sole exception of one story of Brendan and the bull-seals, about which later on. They merely say that he visited many islands that were uninhabited, and that after five years' absence he returned.3 There is also a Vita Metrica Sti. Brendani in the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum, published by Moran, but it relates mainly the adventures of the voyage.

The Navigatio was first printed by Jubinal in 1836 from a MS. in the National Library, Paris; but many others exist, indeed there is hardly a great public library in Europe that does not contain MS. copies of it. In the National Library at Paris there are no less than eleven. The Navigatio is an attempt at a Christian Imram. Among the ancient Irish there existed a whole class of tales of marvellous voyages. The Imrama were such navigations as were voluntarily undertaken, the Longasa such as were made on compulsion. The Book of Leinster mentions as many as seven of these. Of these five still exist. Finding how popular this class of story was, some Christian writer composed an Imram that might be edifying-the Navigatio Brendani.

The Navigatio is a veritable Sinbad-the-Sailor romance, but it is in all probability an embroidery of fancy over some threads of fact. What these threads are, we will make an attempt to discover.

As we have already seen, Brendan started in a N.E. direction. After having lost his direction, and being carried by the wind, he knew not

1 Acta Sti. Brendani, ed. P. Moran, Dublin, 1872.

2 Ibid.

3

Multas in mari nactus est insulas, homines vero nullos. equora perlustravit." Acta in Cod. Sal., coll. 764-5.

Quinquennio

whither, at the end of forty days he sighted land, lying due north, very rocky and lofty. On nearing it, he and his fellow travellers saw only precipitous cliffs with streams spilling over them into the sea.1 Nor was there any harbour visible. They coasted along for three days, and on the third discovered a port into which they thrust their vessels. Brendan blessed the harbour.

The description accords remarkably with the appearance of the south-west coast of Iceland. The little group of the Westmann Islands lies off it, and the inhabitants dare not venture to the mainland, unless a stream that issues from a glacier and shoots over a bluff, falls in an unbroken silver thread to the sea. Brendan coasted along the black cliffs till he reached the great Faxa Fjord, and put into one of the little harbours there. On landing, one of the brothers died of exhaustion and privations, and was buried.

Although we are not told so, the voyagers probably wintered there, for we next hear of them taking to their boats again and landing on another island to celebrate Easter.

That Irish monks did inhabit Iceland before it was colonized by the Northmen we know from independent testimony. The Landnama Bok informs us that Irish bells, books, and other relics were found there; and the Islendinga Bok says that Irish clerics were there when the colonists arrived in 870, and only then departed.2

Before Easter the voyagers landed on an island, on which they found sheep.3 Having killed one, and furnished the boats with meat and water, they committed themselves once more to the sea, and next landed on an island so swarming with seafowl that they called it the Paradise of Birds, Foula, Shetland Isles. Here they celebrated Pentecost.

One of the most extraordinary and impossible stories in the narrative is that of their disembarking on an island "where there was no grass, very little wood, and no sand." On this the brethren landed, and lighted a fire, when the island began to move, and proved to be a monstrous whale. It has been suggested by Mr. O'Donoghue that where the party landed was the island of Illaumaniel, in the Magharee

"

1 Apparuit eis quedam insula ex parte septentrionali, valde saxosa et alta. . . Cum appropinquassent ad litus, viderunt ripam altissimam sicut murum, et diversos rivulos descendentes de summitate insule, fluentes in mare." Navig., ed. Moran, p. 92.

2 Islendinga Sögur, Copenh., 1843, i, pp. 23-4; also p. 266. Islendinga Bok, ibid., p. 4.

3 Possibly the Faroe Isles, the name Faereyar means Sheep Isles. Here also Irish hermits had settled. See Maurer, Die Bekehrung des Norwegischen Stemmes, Munich, 1855, i, pp. 44-5.

group of islands, off the coast of Galway. The name signifies Whale Isle, and it is peculiarly shaped, like one of these leviathans of the deep. It has in it, moreover, a blow hole, into which the Atlantic rollers thunder and whence send forth a spout of foam into the air much like the spouting of a whale.

If all Brendan desired was to keep clear of the mainland, and pursuit, in consequence of the death of his pupil, it would quite satisfy his purpose to spend Easter on Whale Isle, and the fancy of the romancers ran riot over the name.1 He spent Christmas on an island with S. Ailbe, who is described as being at the time very aged and with his hair quite white. Ailbe died in 527 or 531.

There is extant a Life of S. Ailbe, but it says nothing of a retreat to a distant island, but that he should spend his retreat in one just off the coast would be in accordance with the custom of the Celtic Saints. And what is curious is, that just about this time, possibly fired by what he had heard from Brendan of Iceland, he purposed to retire there himself, and would have done so had not Aengus MacNadfraich, king of Munster, intervened.2

Brendan remained with Ailbe till the Octave of the Epiphany, and then took boat again, and allowed the currents to carry him where they would," sine navigio, sine velo," till the beginning of Lent. Then they took in a fresh supply of food and water, and sailed or rowed again, but had to land on account of rough weather, and spend three months on an island, living on a whale that had been cast ashore. The second Christmas to the feast of the Purification was spent with S. Ailbe.

It was, we are expressly told, in the third year of Brendan's exile that he visited Gildas at Ruys.3

On the supposition that there is a substratum of fact under the intolerable amount of fable in the Navigatio, we may place here the next incident, the arrival of Brendan and his party on an island where was a large monastic establishment. The island was fairly level and not rocky. It was entirely treeless. Here they found an abbey and a church, in which three choirs sang the divine service alternately. The order of recitation of the psalms is somewhat minutely described.

At Sext, Psalm lxvii, Deus misereatur, Psalm 1xx, Deus in adjutorium, and Psalm cxvi, 10, Credidi propter, with its proper prayer.

1 S. Brendan the Voyager, p. 94.

2 Vita Sti. Albei, in Cod. Sal., col. 257. The island is there called Dele, i.e. Thule.

3

Post tres annos in illa peregrinacione Sanctus Brendanus ad illum locum pervenit." Vita, ed. Moran, p. 13.

Navigatio, ed. Moran, p. 114.

VOL. I.

R

At Nones, Psalm cxxx, De profundis, Psalm cxxxiii, Ecce quam bonum, and Psalm cxlvii, 12, Lauda Jerusalem.

At Vespers, Psalm lxv, Te decet hymnus, Psalm ciii, Benedic, anima mea, and Psalm cxiii, Laudate pueri.

Then seated, they chanted the Gradual Psalms cxx-cxxxiv. This was sung as darkness closed in.

Then for Prime, Psalm cxlviii, Laudate Dominum, and the two that follow, and these were followed by the twelve psalms to succeed "in the order of the psalter as far as Dixit insipiens," Psalm xiv.

At dawn for Mattins, Psalm li, Miserere mei, Deus, Psalm xc, Domine refugium, and Psalm lxiii, Deus, Deus meus.

At Terce, Psalm xlvii, Omnes gentes, plaudite, Psalm liv, Deus, in Nomine, and Psalm cxvi, Dilexi, quoniam, followed by Alleluia. Then they offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Immaculate Lamb, and all received the Holy Communion with the words, "This Sacred Body of the Lord, and the Blood of our Saviour, receive unto Life everlasting."

1

On leaving the island, the travellers were given a basket full of purple fruit (scalthi), probably grapes or whortleberries 2 of a remarkable size, which grew on the island, where moreover were white flowers and marigolds.

The island may have been Belle Ile, formerly called Guedel, where there is a Bangor, and where the monastic colony was swept away by the Northmen at the close of the ninth century, when all the inhabitants of the island were massacred or migrated to the mainland. Bangor was never rebuilt.3

The Navigatio does not mention the visit to Ruys. It was in winter when Brendan arrived, and we can hardly suppose him engaged in

1 "

'Hoc sacrum corpus Domini et Salvatoris nostri sanguinem sumite vobis in vitam eternam." The formula in the Book of Deer is," Corpus cum sanguine Domini nostri J. C. sanitas sit tibi in vitam perpetuam eț salutem." In the Book of Mulling, "Corpus et sanguis Domini nostri J. C. filii Dei vivi conservat animam tuam in vitam perpetuam." In the Irish S. Gall Missal, Hoc sacrum corpus Domini et Salvatoris sanguinem, alleluia, sumite vobis in vitam." In the Bangor Antiphonary, Hoc sacrum corpus Domini et Salvatoris sanguinem sumite vobis in vitam perennam. Alleluia." This is almost word for word the form employed in the isle visited by S. Brendan. The form in the Stowe Missal is, Hoc sacrum corpus Domini Salvatoris sanguinem, alleluia, sumite vobis in vitam eternam. Alleluia," which is nearer still. Warren (F. E.),

Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church, Oxford, 1881.

Sgeallag is used of kernels and berries.

3 Le Mené, Paroisses de Vannes, Vannes, 1891, sub nom. Le Palais, and Ban

gor.

'Bellam habebat insulam, nomine britannico Guedel appellatam, quam olim Normannorum rabies devastaverat et ejus colonos inde exulaverat." Cartulary of Quimperlé (1029), Paris, 1896, p. 94.

4 " Tunc yems erat." Vit., ed. Moran, p. 13.

lengthy voyage during the storms of that season, or during the equinoctial gales, on that dangerous coast. He must have arrived at Ruys from some island near, such as is Belle Ile. Ruys is situated on the spit of land that, along with the other peninsula of Locmariaquer enclose the Morbihan. The side towards the Atlantic is precipitous, but that towards the inland sea shelves gently down into shallow water. Brendan must have passed through the channel with the sweep of the rising tide, between the points of Arzon and that of Locmariaquer, when he found himself in still water in a broad inland sea studded with sandy islets, on one of which, Gavr Inis, rose the great mound that encloses the marvellous sculptured sepulchral chamber which is one of the wonders of the district. The sloping shore of the Sarzeau arm of land was well timbered.

When the party landed, the weather was inclement; snow was falling and the land was white with the flakes; moreover, the hour was late.1 Nothing doubting of a hospitable reception, they made their way up the rising ground over a bleak moor, to the monastery of Ruys, over which presided the learned but churlish Gildas.

It was surrounded by a high bank and palisade, and they found the gate shut and barred. Brendan and his party stood without and knocked, but the porter refused to open. Probably it was against rule to admit strangers after sunset, and Gildas was not the man to set aside a regulation because bidden to do so by the principles of Christian charity. If we may trust the account in the Life in the Salamanca Codex, the poor shivering monks were constrained to pass the night in the snow outside.

But in the morning, cold, and hungry and angry, Brendan would endure this treatment no longer, and he ordered Talmach, a lusty young disciple, to burst open the gate, and this he did with a hearty good will. Talmach had been a pupil of Mancen at Ty Gwyn, where he had seduced Drustic, a female fellow pupil. It was possibly in consequence of this escapade that he had to leave, and attach himself to S. Brendan.

Marianus O'Gorman styles him "a humble and devoted virgin saint," which shows that the martyrologist was either imperfectly acquainted with Talmach's history, or else that he employed his epithets with lavish charity.

Then Brendan went on with his party to the church, and found that locked as well, and here again he forced the doors. As he desired to

1

"

'Minxit illa nocte ingruenter," Cod. Sal., col. 768. "Nix tunc pluit cooperiens terram," Acta, ed. Moran, p. 13.