After they left this island they were much alarmed by the sight of a griffin flying towards them, but it was killed by another bird which fought it in the air, and its body fell into the sea. They reached the isle Ailbey in safety, and there passed the midwinter as usual.
The following years are passed over with merely the general statement that they went about much in the ocean, and passed the usual seasons in the usual places. It is mentioned that one midsummer the sea was so clear for about a week that they could see the marine animals lying at the bottom; and when Brendan sang, these came up and swam round the ship.
It must be, as far as the chronology of the romance can be said to be fixed, intended to be represented as in the February of the seventh year, that the narrative again becomes continuous. They saw one day a pillar standing in the sea, which appeared to be near them, but which they did not reach for three days. Its top seemed to pierce the clouds. At the distance of about a mile it was surrounded on every hand by a sort of network, of a material like silver, but harder than marble. They drew in the oars and mast, and passed through one of the interstices. The sea within was as clear as glass, so that they could see the bottom, with the lower part of the pillar and the network resting upon it. The pillar was of absolutely clear crystal, so that the light and heat of the sun passed through it. It was forty cubits broad on every side. On the south side they found a chalice of the material of the network and a paten of the material of the pillar. After passing again out of the network, they sailed for eight days towards the North, and here begins what may be called the diabolical portion of the story.
They saw one day a wild and rocky island, without grass or tree, but full of smiths' forges. The wind bore them past it at about a stone's throw, and they could hear bellows roaring with a sound like thunder, and hammers striking upon anvils. Presently they saw one of the inhabitants come out of a cave. He was shaggy and hideous, burnt and dark. When he saw the ship, he ran back howling into his workshop. Brendan immediately bid hoist the sail and have out the oars. While this was doing the creature appeared again with a glowing mass of fused metal (massam igneam de scoria) in pincers, which he hurled at them. Where it struck the water about a furlong from them, it made the sea boil and hiss. They had only escaped about a mile when they saw beings swarming out upon the shore, throwing about molten masses, some after them and some at one another, and then all went back into the forges and set them blazing, until the whole island seemed one mass of fire. The sea boiled like a boiling cauldron, and all day long the travellers heard an awful wailing. Even when they were out of sight of the island, the howls still rang in their ears, and the stench made their nostrils smart. 'And Brendan said, "O ye soldiers of Christ, make you strong in faith not feigned, and in the armour of the spirit, for we are upon the coasts of hell. Watch, therefore, and play the man."'
The next day but one, they found the wind bearing them down upon another mountain in the sea, black as coal, reaching steep down to the sea, and whose top they could hardly see, but yet wrapt in soft mists. When they came near it, the sole remaining of the three last come brethren jumped out of the ship and waded to shore. Suddenly he showed signs of terror, and cried out that he was being carried away and could not return. The brethren in horror pushed the ship away from land, and started towards the South. When they looked back they saw flames shooting up from the top of the mountain, and then sinking in again, and again surging up. It is a phenomenon familiar to any one who has watched the top of a volcano—often even of iron-works—and which has been splendidly described in the account of the burning essence of life in She. From this sight they fled and journeyed for seven days toward the South.
We now reach an incident founded upon that fact from the contemplation of which the human mind perhaps shrinks more than from any other. But the literary treatment of it is so curious and striking, and is rendered all the more so, at least to me, because I am aware of only one other attempt to grapple with it in the whole cycle of human invention, and that in the very highest sphere of imaginative literature, that I think that you will forgive me if I deal with it, and give at any-rate a part of it in full. 'And after these things,' says the novelist, 'the Father Brendan saw as it were a very thick mist, and when they drew nigh thereto, there appeared unto them a little shape as it had been the shape of a man sitting upon a stone, and before him a veil of the size of a bag hanging between two forks of iron, and thus the waves beat him about as it were a boat when it is in peril in a tempest. And when the brethren saw it, some of them thought that it had been a bird, and others thought that it had been a ship. Then the man of God answered them, "Brethren, let be this strife, and turn the ship unto the place." And when the man of God drew nigh thereto, the waves round about stood still as though they had been frozen. And they found sitting upon a stone a man shaggy and mis-shapen, and from every side when the waves came upon him, they smote him up to the crown of his head; and when again they fell away from him then was seen the stone whereon the unhappy one sat. And the wind moved about from time to time the cloth that was before him, and it smote him upon the eyes and upon the forehead. And when the blessed one asked him who he was, and for what fault he was set there, and how he had merited such punishment, he said, "I am that most unhappy Judas, the worst of bargainers. Neither for any desert of mine do I have this place, but through the pardon and pity of the Redeemer of the world, and in honour of His holy resurrection, have I this rest" (now, it was the Lord's Day), "and when I sit here it seemeth to me as though I were in the Garden of Eden, by reason of the torments which I shall have this even, for when I am in torment I am like a bit of lead molten in a crucible day and night. In the midst of the mountain which ye have seen, there is Leviathan with his crew, and I was there when it swallowed up your brother, and therefore hell was glad, and sent forth great flames, and thus doth it ever when it devoureth the souls of the wicked. But that ye may know the measureless goodness of God, I will tell you of my rest. I have here my rest every Lord's Day from evening to evening—,"' and then follow some words as to other days which are evidently corrupted both in Jubinal's text and in that of the Salamanca MS. Then it continues, '"But the other days I am tormented with Herod and Pilate, with Annas and Caiphas; and therefore I beseech you for the sake of the Redeemer of the world, that ye be pleased to plead for me with the Lord Jesus that it be granted me to be here until to-morrow at the rising of the sun, that at your coming the devils may not torment me nor carry me away unto that evil heritage which I have bought unto myself."' This is done. There is some talk, from which it appears that the cloth is one which Judas once gave to a leper, the forks some which he had given to Priests whereon to hang pots, and the stone whereon he sits, one with which he had once filled up an hole in a public highway. The whole episode closes thus:—'At the breaking of the day, when the man of God began to take his journey, behold, an infinite multitude of devils covered the face of the deep, speaking with dreadful voices and saying, "O man of God, cursed be thy coming in and thy going out, for our prince hath scourged us this night with grievous stripes, because we brought him not that accursed prisoner." And the man of God saith unto them, "Let that curse be not upon us but upon you, for blessed is he whom ye curse, and cursed is he whom ye bless." The devils said, "That unhappy Judas shall suffer double pains these six days, because ye have shielded him this night." The saint saith unto them, "Ye have no power, neither your princes, for power is of God." And he said, "In the name of the Lord, I command you and your prince that ye put him to no greater torments than ye have been wont." They answered him, "Art thou the Lord of all, that we should obey thy words?" The man of God saith unto them, "I am the servant of the Lord of all; and whatsoever I command in His Name, it is done; and I have no ministry save of them whom he giveth me." And so they followed him, continually blaspheming, until he was borne away from Judas; and the devils went back and lifted up that most unhappy soul among them, with a great rushing and shouting.'
This subject is one that ought not to be treated at all. It ought to be left veiled in the unknown, as it has been left for us by the Infinite Mercy from Whose revelation we know all that we know about it. As a matter of fact, I am only aware, as I have stated, of one other writer besides this Irish romancer, who has treated it. That writer is Dante. At the lowest depth of his Inferno sits Satan munching Brutus, Cassius, and Judas in his threefold mouth. Brutus and Cassius have their heads and upper parts hanging outside the mouth.
'Quell' anima lassù, c' ha maggior pena,'
Disse 'l Maestro, 'è Giuda Scariotto,
Che 'l capo ha dentro, e fuor le gambe mena.'
The traditional epithet which the world has justly attached to the name of Dante Alighieri is 'the Sublime'. I am almost afraid to say it, but we all know how proverbially short is the distance between the sublime and the ridiculous. And I venture to submit to the private personal thought of each of you whether it be not merely the horror of the subject and of the conception, and the almost stupefying grandeur of the poetry, which separates this idea from the grotesque; and whether, if the thing be to be touched at all, the old Irish fabulist has not produced a conception both more tender and more truly tragic.
They then go for three days southward and find a small precipitous rocky island, quite round, and about one furlong in circumference. Here they find a narrow landing-place, and dwelling on the summit an hermit aged one hundred and forty years, of which he had passed ninety in the island. He had no clothes except his own hair, which was long and white. He was an Irishman named Paul, and had known Patrick. For thirty years he had lived on fish brought him by a beast, presumably an otter, in its fore-paws, along with fuel wherewith to cook it, and which he kindled by striking a flint, and for sixty years upon the water of a spring. He gave them of the water of the spring, and bade them go their way, telling them that in forty days they would keep the Passover as usual, and so also Pentecost, and thereafter would they find 'the land holier than all lands.'