Classical roots of the Brandan legend
While thus many features connect the legend of Brandan with northern waters, it has, on the other hand—like many other Irish myths—its roots far down in the mythical conceptions of the classics. Above all, Brandan’s Paradise or “Promised Land of the Saints,” Terra Repromissionis Sanctorum, is nothing but the Greeks’ Isles of the Blest, blended with ideas from the Bible. As shown by Zimmer [1889, pp. 328 ff.], the Imram Maelduin (which to a large extent forms the foundation of the Navigatio St. Brandani) and other Irish tales of sea-voyages have great similarity to Virgil’s Æneid, and are composed on its model. We have already said that Brandan’s Grape-island may have some connection with Lucian. From him is possibly also derived Brandan’s great whale, “Iasconicus,” on whose back they live and celebrate Easter. But similar big fishes are known from old Indian legends, from the legends about Alexander, etc. It may also be mentioned that in the Breton legend corresponding to Brandan’s, that of St. Machutus (written down by Bili, deacon at Aleth, ninth century), the latter and Brandan came to an island where they find the dead giant “Mildu,” whom Machutus awakens and baptizes and who, wading through the sea, tries to draw their ship to the Paradise-island of “Yma,” which he says is surrounded by a wall of shining gold, like a mirror, without any visible entrance. But a storm raises the sea and bursts the cable by which he is towing them. Humboldt already saw in this giant the god Cronos, who, according to Plutarch, lay sleeping on an island in the Cronian Sea to the north-west of Ogygia, which lay five days’ voyage to the west of Britain (see above, [p. 156]). It is probably the same giant who in the tale of Brandan written in Irish (“Imram Brenaind”) has become a beautiful maiden, whiter than snow or sea-spray; but a hundred feet high, nine feet across between the breasts, and with a middle finger seven feet long. She is lying lifeless, killed by a spear through the shoulder; but Brandan awakens and baptizes her. She belongs to the sea-people, who are awaiting redemption. As, in answer to Brandan’s question, she prefers going straight to heaven to living, she dies again immediately without a sigh after taking the sacrament [cf. Schirmer, 1888, pp. 30, 72; Zimmer, 1889, p. 136; De Goeje, 1891, p. 69]. This maiden is evidently connected with the supernaturally beautiful, big, and white king’s daughter from the Land of Virgins (“Tír na-n-Ingen”) who seeks the protection of Finn MacCumaill, and who is also pierced by a spear [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 269, 325]. Thus do mythical beings transform themselves till they become unrecognisable. The same woman is found again in Iceland as late as the seventeenth century.[350]
The Brandan legend and Norse literature
In many of its features the Brandan legend, or similar Irish legends, may be shown to have had influence on Norse literature. The theft of the neck-chain (or bridle ?) by one of the brethren, who comes to grief thereby, in the Navigatio and in other Irish tales, is found again, as Moltke Moe points out to me, in the story of Thorkel Adelfar in Saxo Grammaticus, as a theft of jewels and of a cloak, through which the thieves also come to grief. The great fish (whale) “Iasconicus,” of which Brandan relates that it tries in vain to bite its own tail, is evidently the Midgardsworm of Norse literature. In the same way the little, apparently innocent, but supernatural cat in the “Imram Maelduin” which suddenly destroys the man who steals the neck-chain may be connected with the cat that Thor tries to lift in Utgard. It is doubtless the same little cat that three young priests took with them on their voyage in another Irish legend [in the Book of Leinster, of the beginning of the twelfth century]. In the “Imram Brenaind” this little cat they took with them has grown into a monkey as large as a young ox, which swims after Brandan’s boat and wants to swallow it [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 139]. Again, quite recently Von Sydow [1910, pp. 65 ff.] has shown that the Snorra-Edda’s myth of Thor’s journey to Utgard is based on Irish myths and tales.
The happy land in the west known in Northern Europe
Legends of a happy land or an island far over the sea towards the sunset were evidently widely diffused in Northern Europe in those days, outside Ireland. In Anglo-Saxon literature there is a dialogue between Adrianus and Ritheus (probably of the tenth century), where we read:
“Tell me where the sun shines at night.”... “I tell you in three places: first in the belly of the whale that is called ‘Leuiathan’; and the second season it shines in Hell; and the third season it shines upon the island that is called ‘Glið,’ and there the souls of holy men repose till doomsday.”[351]
This Glið (i.e., the glittering land) is evidently the Land of the Blest, Brandan’s Terra Repromissionis, that lies in dazzling sunshine, after one has passed through darkness and mist; but whether the myth reached the Anglo-Saxons from the Irish seems doubtful.
Pseudo-Gildas’s description (twelfth century) of the isle of “Avallon” (the apple-island of Welsh myth) is also of interest; it is connected with exactly the same ideas as the Irish happy isles:
“A remarkable island is surrounded by the ocean, full of all good things; no thief, no robber, no enemy pursues one there; no violence, no winter, no summer rages immoderately; peace, concord, spring last eternally, neither flower nor lily is wanting, nor rose nor violet; the apple-tree bears flowers and fruit on the selfsame branch; there without stain youths dwell with their maidens, there is no old age and no oppressive sickness, no sorrow, all is full of joy.”[352]