IN NORTHERN MISTS 



to find land In the west should originate precisely in this 

 enterprising seaport. 



On the maps o£ the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

 there lay out in the ocean to the west of Ireland the Isle of 

 Brazil (cf. p. 228). It was the Irish fortunate isle, Hy Breasail, 

 of which it is sung : 



" On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell, 

 A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell; 

 Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest. 

 And they called it O'Brazil — the isle of the blest. 



" From year unto year, on the ocean's blue rim, 

 The beautiful specter showed lovely and dim; 

 The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay. 

 And it looked like an Eden, away, far away." 



[Gerald Griffin.] 



We have seen that on certain maps this round fabled 

 isle was brought into connection with an *' Insula verde," 

 probably Greenland, and this conception of the latter prob- 

 ably came from Iceland by way of England. We do not 

 know what myths were associated with Brazil at that time; 

 but the belief in it was so much alive that ships were sent 

 out from Bristol to search for the island. A contemporary 

 account of such an attempt made in 1480 has come down to 

 us: ^ 



"On the 15th of July [25th of July, N.S.] ships . . . [belonging to?] 

 . . . and John Jay junior, of 80 tons burthen, sailed out of the port of Bris- 



to Iceland, in 1477, Columbus may have heard of the Norsemen's voyages to 

 Greenland, Markland, and Wineland, and that this may have given him the 

 idea of his plan. Storm has pointed out, convincingly it seems to me, the un- 

 tenability of the latter supposition. But it appears to me that he has over- 

 looked the possibility of Columbus having heard tales of these voyages in 

 Bristol, or, still more probably, on a Bristol vessel. As, of course, he must 

 have been able to make himself understood among the other sailors on board, 

 it would be unlikely that he should not have heard such tales, if they were 

 known to his shipmates. 



iWillelmus Botoner, alias de Worcester (1415-1484). MS. in Corpus 

 Christi College, Cambridge, No. 210; printed in " Itineraria Symonis Simeonis 

 et Willelmi de Worcestre," ed. J. Nasmyth, Cambridge, 1778, pp. 223, 267. 

 Cf. H. Harrisse, 1892, p. 659; Kretschmer, 1892, p. 219, 

 294 



