56 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



back through encountering vast numbers of marine animals — a shoal 

 of jelly-fish, say some commentators. 



Archaeological remains of the early anchorites are still in existence 

 on many of the Irish and Scottish islands. Some of these retreats may 

 well have been in the mind of the author of the Navigatio Brendani 

 when he was describing the extraordinary islands which his hero 

 found in the midst of the western ocean. Skellig Michael, which lies 

 ofif the Kerry coast, about thirty-six miles south-west of Brandon 

 Hill, was, as we know from the annals, an abode of religious in 824, 

 when it was ravaged by the Northmen. It is a rocky mountain which 

 rises to a height of 704 feet above the sea; on an artificial plateau at 

 an elevation of 545 feet are the beehive shaped stone cells and oratories 

 of the anchorites. The plateau was reached by a stairway cut in the 

 rock, of which 620 steps remain. Away to the north of Brandon Hill, 

 on the coast of Clare, is the rock known as Bishop's Island, or, to give 

 the literal translation of the Irish name, the Island of the Starving 

 Bishop. Its sides are perpendicular or over-hanging cliffs rising about 

 250 feet, and the top a barren expanse of about three quarters of an 

 acre. Access to the top can be effected only after a long period of 

 fine weather, and then with the greatest difficulty; yet on this barren 

 top are some of the most interesting early Christian archaeological 

 remains.^ 



It has been seen that, according to Adamnan, writing about 790, 

 Irish anchorites had reached the Orkneys before the end of the sixth 

 century. In Adamnan's own time, or soon after, they had pushed on 

 to the Faroes, and in another hundred years, before the end of the 

 eighth century, they had discovered Iceland. 



Dicuil, Irish geographer at the court of Charlemagne, is the chief 

 source for these discoveries. Writing in 825, and speaking, it would 

 seem certain, of the Faroes, he says: 



There are many other islands in the ocean north of Britain, which can be reached 

 from the northern British Isles in two days' and two nights' direct sailing with full 

 sail and a favourable wind. A certain conscientious priest told me that he had 

 reached one of these islands by sailing for two summer days and a night in a small 

 vessel with two benches for rowers. These islands are for the most part small, and 

 are divided from each other by narrow straits. On them have dwelt for nearly a 

 hundred years hermits who proceeded thither from our own Ireland. But now they 

 are once more — as they were from the beginnings-deserted by the anchorites, on 

 account of the Northman pirates, but are filled with innumerable sheep and a great 

 number of different kinds of sea-birds. We have never found these islands spoken of 

 in written books.* 



* Wakeman's Handbook of Irish Antiquities (3rd ed. by J. Cooke, Dublin, 1903), 

 pp. 279 et seq., gives a brief description of some of these islands. 

 ^De Mensura Orhis Terrae VII iii. 



