Westropp — Brusil and the Legendary Islands of the N. Atlantic. 237 



the Irish tales are most striking. Islands high and woody, abounding in 

 vines, apples, fruits, and gorgeous flowers, perfumes and melodious birds ; a 

 frozen sea, rivers of fire, wine, and milic ; religious rites on a whale's back ; an 

 island with the yells of men in torment and sulphurous air, hound-headed 

 men ; and the Island of the Blessed where it is always spring and none grows 

 old, occur in the Samosatan tales, as they do in the Irish ; even the brazen 

 fort has an equivalent in the brazen monument to Bacchus and Hercules, 

 and the wonderful racecourse is not forgotten. 



Doubtless Seneca' alludes to Atlantis in the Medea : " In later years a time 

 shall come when ocean shall relax its chains and a vast continent be disclosed. 

 A [new] Tiphys shall find new worlds, and Thule shall no longer be earth's 

 bounds." 



" Venient annis 



Saecula seris, quibus oceanus 



Vinoula rerum laxet et ingens 



Pateat tellus — Typhisque novos 



Detegat orbes nee sit terris 



Ultima Thule." 



It is pleasant to recall that the " Tiphys " of this prophecy, Columbus, 

 knew and was encoiu'aged by the verse to fulfil it over fourteen centuries 

 after.^ 



Lastly, Plutarch placed the Isle of Ogygia five days' sail westward from 

 Britain, and told of a great continent beyond the ocean. 



The Atlantis legend reached the Arabian geographers^ along with the 

 Irish and Norse tales. The great cosmographer, AbduUeh Mohammed Edrisi, 

 about 1150, knew of " Great Ireland,"^ besides the real Birlanda or Irlanda, 

 Anglit or Angiltara, and Eeslanda, Islanda or Iceland. He also marked the 

 " Isle of Birds " and the " Isle of Sheep." Through them the names of the 

 islands became known to the Spaniards and Portuguese of the later centuries. 

 The Arabs were believed to have crossed the Atlantic; and the Observatory 

 of Sagres, under the influence of Prince Henry the Navigator, collected 



1 Medea. Seneca elsewhere quotes a poem (circa a.d. 16) on the Northern Sea with its darkness, 

 sluggish waves, savage whales, and sea-dogs. The monsters embody the danger and terror of 

 the sea. 



^ Ferdinand Colunihus, chapter vii, ed. Nienhoff's " Voyages," 1703, vol. ii, p. 566. 



^ See "Life of Brandon," T.Wright, Introd., p. v. Edrisi gives seven '■ empty " islands to 

 west of Ireland — Gazirat Birlanda, Gazirat Angiltara, Gazirat Squosia (Scotta), and Gazirat Islanda. 

 He also mentions Gals or Wales, and how Ptolemy tells of 27,000 islands in the ocean. Edrisi 

 names the isle of female demons, of sheep, of birds, Gazirat Khusran (the Isle of Illusion) and 

 "Shasland" (see "Northern Mists," vol. i, p. 200, chap. .\iii). 



' The maps |>laced Great Ireland between the south of Ireland and Guinea. The Norse in 1570 

 fancied that Viiiland extended nearly to Africa (" i'inding of Wineland the Good," pp. 11-16). 



