2 76 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acu'tein//. 



place; and he tells his correspondent : — "your cousin, a wise man and a great 

 scholar," took out a patent under Charles I to hold the island. 



Boullaye Le G-ouz, in 1644, one evening, when approaching Ireland, saw 

 (he says) a spectral land, from 1 to 3 miles away, with trees and cattle ; and 

 the pilot told him that it and similar islands near Greenland were often seen, 

 and that there were floating islands further north near the Pole. 1 



Boderic OTlaherty, in 1684, mentions the visionary island of O'Brasil, or 

 Beg Ara, seen from Aran, and how at the rocks of Skird in the same bay 

 phantom cities, towers, "blazing flames and smoak," were seen, with even 

 people running, and, at times, ships and corn-stacks. One Morogh Ley declared 

 that he had been carried off to O'Brasil for two days in August, 1668. Later 

 legend tells how he brought back a medical work now in the Academy's 

 Library, called "the Book of O'Brasil." OTlaherty says that about that 

 time some fishermen were carried two days out to sea from the Owles 

 (O'Maille's country) and saw an unknown land, with sheep, but were in 30 

 fathoms of water beyond the Imaireboy cod-bank. 2 I myself have seen, on at 

 least three occasions in 1868 and 1872, from the cliffs near Kilkee, County Clare, 

 an apparent island, with hills, trees, towers, and smoke, after sunset, near 

 the horizon. 3 



The European belief in mysterious islands probably sprang in a great 

 degree from the Lives of St. Brendan. These stories had commenced before 

 the Xorse wars, but may have been shaped by the discoveries of the Yikings 

 along the American coast. It was probably during the twelfth century that 

 the later versions of the legend spread through the Xorman Settlements from 

 Ireland into Europe. The 1280 map of Richard de Haldingham at Hereford 

 Cathedral does not mark any island outside Ireland ; but, in 1339, A. Dulceti 

 marked on his map a large island, about 60 miles west of the coast of Munster. 

 The far superior Catalan map in 1373 named this island as " St. Brendan's 

 Isle," and gave another, "The Isle of Mam," farther to the south. The 1459 

 mappa-mundi of Fra Mauro, executed for Alphonso Y, King of Portugal, 

 marks Brasil — " I. del Berzel, anesta isola de hibernia, son. dite fortunato " : 

 but the knowledge of freland itself is mere ignorance. 4 Solerio's map, 1385, 



1 "Tour in Ireland" (cd. T. Crofton Croker),p. 3. Archbishop Ussher, in "Hiberni;i," mentions- 

 tliu '■ Lo a .Miranda " seen by St. Brendan or. the ocean. 



- hlar Connaught (ed. James Hardiman), pp. 68, 69, 72. The Book of Ley has the date 1434 

 written in it. Readers Trill remember Gerald Griffin's poem on the Aran fisherman lost in the 

 pursuit of Jly Brazil. 



3 Journal U.S.A. I., xxx, p. 289, and xl, p. 121, and " Guide to Islands," vi, p. 24. "Folk-lore," 

 xxi, p. 481. 



4 The only cities named are "Stariforda " (f Carlingford), " Garafonda '' (at Waierford), and. 

 " Dnm'^orj; " iit Cork . See also early maps in Xordenskiol i"s " Facsimile Atlas." 



