2.6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



both islands are shown, although of very unlike aspect and in widely 

 separated regions of the sea. It is altogether more likely that the 

 name Alan is Gaelic in this instance, as in that of the well known island 

 in the Irish Sea, especially as its nearest and most constant neighbor 

 Brazil is Gaelic too ; but the &quot; Alan &quot; of Bianco s long name is doubt 

 less correctly rendered as Latin in origin. This would not, however, 

 prove a different original meaning, for Alan ? is said to mean 

 &quot; Hand in obsolete Gaelic also. 



If all this curious shoal of names and islands having to do with Man 

 in name or in form and location must indeed be considered as one 

 then assuredly is that one the most protean, elusive, and bewilder 

 ing of the whole &quot; mythical island &quot; display. It seems more readily 

 conceivable to suppose they have grown out of two or more glimpses 

 of land, at widely separated points and by men of different nations 

 and languages who sometimes used a syllable in common, though with 

 different meanings ; and there is nothing in this to preclude those 

 shores from belonging to a single far extended line, continuous or 

 broken. A guess at Satanaxio has already been given. Similarly we 

 may say that if Brazil be the region about the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 we might possibly find Man in the Bermudas, though the indications 

 are too faint to warrant more than a diffident suggestion (see note 6, 



P- J 77)- 



Reviewing the general field of these islands that for so long have 



played their little jests with geography, it seems altogether likely 

 that, before the acknowledged historical discoveries of the Antilles 

 and North America, there had been crossings and recrossings of the 

 Atlantic at various times approximately along the routes of Columbus 

 and Cabot ; possibly also on one or more intervening lines. The 

 vague intimations which they gave in the figures and traditions of 

 Antillia and Brazil undoubtedly spurred on both of these men ; and 

 probably one or more of them had, far earlier, through the related 

 Great Ireland and its legends, made certain the discovery of Mark- 

 land and Wineland by the Icelanders. But we have no surviving 

 narratives of these previous voyages which may be tested by their data 

 of natural history, ethnology, and coastline features as we test the 

 voyage-narrative of Thorfinn Karlsefni. 



4. THE PROBLEM OF GREAT IRELAND 



We acquit St. Brandan of finding America, but the fact remains 

 that for probably more than five centuries men believed in a Great 

 Ireland far west of Ireland over sea. 



