Where wild winds ne’er held revelry,
But fulfilled are the balmy skies
With spicy gales from Paradise;
These gales that waft the scent of flowers
That fade not, and the sunny hours
Speed on, nor night, nor shadow know.[47]
They sail westward fifteen days from Ireland; then in a month’s calm drift to a rock, where they find a palace with food and where Satan visits them but does no harm. They next voyage seven months, in a direction not stated, and find an island with immense sheep; but, when they are about to cook one, the island begins to sink and reveals itself as a “beast.” They reach another island where the birds are repentant fallen angels. From this they journey six months to an island with a monastery founded by St. Alben. They sail thence till calm falls on them and the sea becomes like a marsh; but they reach an island where are fish made poisonous by feeding on metallic ores. A white bird warns them. They keep Pentecost on a great sea monster, remaining seven weeks. Then they journey to where the sea sleeps and cold runs through their veins. A sea serpent pursues them, breathing fire. Answering the saint’s prayer, another monster fights and kills the first one. Similarly a dragon delivers them from a griffin. They see a great and bright jeweled crystal temple (probably an iceberg). They land on shores of smoke, flame, blast, and evil stench. A demon flourishes before them, flies overhead, and plunges into the sea. They find an island of flame and smoke, a mountain covered with clouds, and the entrance to hell. Beyond this they find Judas tormented. Next they find an island with a white-haired hermit, who directs them to the promised island, where another and altogether wonderful holy man awaits them, of whom more anon.
In this version, as in others, there are passages—such as the mention of extreme cold and the account of a great floating structure of crystal—which imply a northward course for their voyage in some one of its stages. So greatly was Humboldt impressed by this and by the insistence on the Isle of Sheep, which he identified with the Faroes, that he restricted in theory the saint’s navigation to high latitudes.[48]
The Probable Basis of Fact
But it is noticeable that every version gives St. Brendan the task of finding a remote island, which was always warm and lovely, and chronicles the attainment of this delight, though he finds other delectable islands near it or by the way. The metrical description before quoted is surely explicit enough, but the Book of Lismore outdoes it in a very revel of adjectives. As though praises alone failed to satisfy the celebrant, he introduces the figure of a holy ungarmented usher—a living demonstration of the benignity of the climate. He was “without any human raiment, but all his body was full of bright white feathers like a dove or sea mew; and it was almost the speech of an angel that he had.” “Vast is the light and fruitfulness of the island,” he cried in welcome and launched forthwith on a prodigal expenditure of superextolling words outpoured on their new delightful home. It is all perfectly in keeping with the glow and luxuriance of sun-warmed shores and the unique airiness of his spontaneous raiment. Clearly “summer isles of Eden,” and nothing that has to do with icebergs or wintry blasts, are called for in this case.