Probable Gaelic Origin of the Word “Brazil”
The word takes many forms on maps and in manuscripts: as Brasil, Bersil, Brazir, O’Brazil, O’Brassil, Breasail. As a personal name it has been common in Ireland from ancient days. The “Brazil fierce” of Campbell’s “O’Connor’s Child” may be recalled by the few who have not wholly forgotten that beautiful old-fashioned poem. Going farther back, we find Breasail mentioned as a pagan demigod in Hardiman’s “History of Galway”[72] which quotes from one of the Four Masters, who collated in the sixteenth century a mass of very ancient material indeed. Also St. Brecan, who shared the Aran Islands with St. Enda about A.D. 480 or 500, had Bresal for his original name when he flourished as the son of the first Christian king of Thormond. The name, however spelled, is said to have been built up from two Gaelic syllables “breas” and “ail,” each highly commendatory in implication and carrying that note of admiration alike to man or island. Quite in consonance therewith the fifteenth-century map of Fra Mauro in 1459[73] not only delineated and named this Atlantic Berzil but appended the inscription “Queste isole de Hibernia son dite fortunate,” ranking it as one of the “Fortunate Islands.”
Fig. 4—Section of the Dalorto map of 1325 showing Brazil, Daculi, and other legendary islands. (After Magnaghi’s photographic facsimile.)