Westropp — Brasii and the Legendary Islands of the N. Atlantie. 239 



cut a sod on St. David's Head and stood upon it you could see the Islands of 

 the Blessed."' Scotland, too, had her " Plaith Inis," which was surrounded 

 by clouds and tempests, with an island, " Caerecennfinn," between Scotland 

 and Ireland, where the Irish of Ulster placed their " Tir Hudi." The Bretons 

 had their submerged city of Is ; the French and Portuguese told of the mythic 

 Isles of Maida, Asmaida, or Asmanda and Isle Verte, or Ilha Verde, suggesting 

 the Inis Glas of other legends. The Spaniards had their tale of Antilia- and 

 the Isle of the Seven Cities of the Gothic kings and bishops who fled from the 

 Moors to them in 714,^ while Ireland, England, France, Portugal, and Spain 

 agreed in believing that outside human trade, rarely within the limits of 

 sight, lay Brasii and St. Brendan's Isle, the Fortunate Islands, the Isle of 

 Birds, and the Isle of Sheep. There was an imaginary island. Mam, and 

 further north. Bund, Frishlant, or Friseland, Estland, Daithuli, Drogeo, and 

 Estotiland.^ Nicholas Zeno (men afterwards told) had, about 1380, been 

 wrecked on Frisland and saved by its chief, Zichmi; and he and his 

 brother had visited Estotiland (Labrador ?), Estland, and Drogeo. It is far 

 from improbable that the published copy of the Zeni map, " rotten with age," 

 and the description were the results of misunderstanding notes about Scotland 

 (Escotiland), Greenland, and Iceland (Eslanda). But the Icelanders in 

 1570 regarded Frisland as a large island separate from their own.^ A 

 possible confusion among storms, mists, and icebergs led the " buss " of 

 Emanuel Frobisher's fleet in 1578 to report an unknown island thereafter 

 shown as " Buss " till the eighteenth century. Two maps, one by Euysch, in 

 1508, mark an island to the west of Iceland with the words " Insula hec in 

 Anno Dni 1456 fuit totaliter cobusta."'^ It is curious that the Sagas tell of 



' "Chambers's Journal," No. 76, vol. ii, June, 1885, p. 371. 



- Derived from Aristotle's note of the discovery of the Atlantic Island by Carthage. Coins of the 

 great city have been found in Corvo. 



' Under Don Rodrigo, tlie last Gothic King of Spain, and King Sebastian after the battle of 

 Alcazar. Nordenskiold ("Facsimile Atlas") gives Euysch, 1508 (No. xxxii), with a long note 

 on Antilia, King Eoderigo, and the Bishops. Legend said that a Portuguese crew had reached 

 Antilia and attended the Mass ; the sand of the island was one-third golden. It was 2,500 miles 

 from Cipango. 



* For all these fanciful islands I rely much on A. E. Nordenskiold's magnificent series of 

 reproductionsof early maps in his " Facsimile Atlas " and "Periplus," and Jomard's "Monuments." 



^ " Frisland " is shown not far from the north-west coast of Ireland in the map of Domingo Olivez, 

 1568 (Nordeuskiold's " Periplus," map x.\ix). Columbus identified it with Ptolemy's Thule, which 

 Marinus places in 63° north latitude if (but the matter seems taken from a later writer than his son) 

 the passage in the account of Ferdinand Columbus be genuine. 



° A. E. Nordeuskiold's "Facsimile Atlas," No. xxxii, and his "Periplus" (Transl. A. Bather, 

 Stockholm, 1897), p. 92. The island is shown with the same note on maps of Cantino, 1502, and 

 Ruysch, 1508 ; as also in the Sigurd maps showing Vinland, &c., 1670. See also in the Olaus 

 Magnus map, 1557. Also Nansen's "In Northern Mists," vol. ii, pp. 122, 123, " Mons eicelsus 

 Witzarc," a resort of pirates ; and Gourmont's map of 1584. 



K.I. A. PEOC, VOL. XXX., SECT. C. [33] 



