[kenney] the legend OF ST. BRENDAN 63 



lived here for eighty years, since the time of the saints Patrick and Ailbe, super- 

 naturally supplied with food, and leading a life of the strictest monastic discipline. 

 [There are several allusions in Irish sources to this overseas family of St. Ailbe, 

 According to one of these, he wished himself to go to the island of Thule, but being 

 prevented sent a band of his monks into exile over the ocean.^] In the church 

 Brendan sees the candles lighted by a miraculous fire that enters through a window. 

 Brendan and his people remain here from Christmas to the octave of the Epiphany. 

 Throughout the whole seven years of their voyage they spend the same holy seasons 

 at the same places, Holy Thursday and Good Friday at the Isle of Sheep, Easter on 

 the back of the sea monster, Pentecost at the Paradise of Birds, from Christmas to 

 Candlemas at the island of the Family of Ailbe. 



At the beginning of Lent in the second year they visit another island having a 

 soporific fountain, and soon after come to a place where the sea is coagulated. After 

 leaving the Paradise of Birds they are pursued by a monster which threatens to 

 swallow them, but is killed by another. Later they obtain a supply of meat from 

 the body, all except Brendan, who never touches animal food. Some time later 

 they discover a land variously named the Island of Anchorites, of the Three Choirs, 

 or of Strong Men, where live three groups of religious, one boys, the second young 

 men, and the third old men, who spend their whole time in devotional exercises. 

 The second of the three supernumerary monks remains in this place. The next 

 discovery is the Isle of Grapes, of which they have foreknowledge by a bird which 

 brings them a branch loaded with huge grapes. [The grapes of Escol, and the dove 

 returning to the ark, will be recalled.] The island is covered with trees which are 

 heavy with the vintage, and has an abundance of edible herbs, and six springs of 

 water. An adventure with a grififin, a creature otherwise little known to Irish myth, 

 follows, and has an outcome similar to that with the sea monster in this narrative 

 and with the cat of the Vita. 



The author now passes over several years to bring us to the final adventures. 

 Once, on the feast of St. Peter, the water was so clear that the bottom of the ocean 

 and all the monsters of the deep could be seen. Hearing the voice of Brendan saying 

 mass, they rise to the surface, to the great terror of the monks, but remain respect- 

 fully at a distance. Later they come to an immense column of crystal standing in 

 the ocean and surrounded by a canopy of silver colour. With difficulty an entrance 

 is effected, and four days are spent sailing unr'er the canopy. [This seems to be in 

 part based on some confused knowledge of icebergs, in part on the folk tale of the 

 island supported on columns, usually on four columns, which is the number given in 

 the Vita}] The pilgrims are now approaching the confines of the infernal regions. 

 They come first to the Island of Smiths, hairy and horrible creatures who, after 

 hurling masses of fiery rock from their workshops at the visitors, give the whole 

 island to flames. [The goba, or smith, is in Irish legend a person of magical, and 

 sometimes of diabolical, attributes.'] Next they approach a volcanic island where 

 the third supernumerary monk is dragged ofï by demons who are invisible to all 

 but Brendan. Then follows what is, perhaps, the most remarkable product of the 

 author's imagination, the description of Judas Iscariot sitting on a rock, buffeted by 

 wind and water, where, partly because of certain slight acts of kindness performed 



' Cf. Reeves The Life of St. Columha Written by Adamnan, p. 168, and Plummer 

 Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae, vol. I, p. clxxxiii. 

 ^ Moran op. cit. p. 23. 

 3 Cf. inter al., St. Patrick's Hymn. 



