Fig. 11—Section of the map of the New World in the 1513 edition of Ptolemy showing the islands of Mayda (asmaidas) and Brazil (obrassil). (After Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.)
However, there is a recorded Arabic association of this particular island under another name. It had been generally called Mam or Man, and occasionally other names, for more than a century before it was called Mayda. Perhaps the oldest name of all is Brazir, by which it appears on the map of 1367 of the Pizigani brothers ([Fig. 2]),[141] a form evidently modified from Brazil and shared with the round island of that name then already more than forty years old on the charts. The Brazil which we specially have to do with bears roughly and approximately the crescent form, which later became usually more neat and conventionalized under the name Man or Mayda. It appears south (or rather a little west of south) of the circular Brazil, which is, as usual, west of southern Ireland and a little south of west of Limerick. The crescent island is also almost exactly in the latitude of southern Brittany, taking a point a little below the Isle de Sein, which still bears that name. In this position there may be indications of relation with both Brittany and Ireland. The former relation is pictorially attested by three Breton ships. One of them is shown returning to the mouth of the Loire. A second has barely escaped from the neighborhood of the fateful island. A third is being drawn down stern foremost by a very aggressive decapod, which drags overboard one of the crew; perhaps she has already shattered herself on the rocks, offering the opportunity of such capture in her disabled state. A dragon flies by with another seaman, apparently snatched from the submerging deck. Blurred and confused inscriptions in strange transitional Latin seem to warn us of the special dangers of navigation in this quarter; the staving of holes in ships, the tawny monsters, known to the Arabs, which rise from the depths, the dragons that come flying to devour. The words “Arabe” and “Arabour” are readily decipherable; so is “dragones.” Perhaps there is no statement that Arabs have been to that island, for their peculiar experience may belong to some other quarter of the globe; but the verbal association is surely significant. The name Bentusla (Bentufla?) applied to this crescent island by Bianco in his map of 1448[142] has sometimes been thought to have an Arabic origin; but one would not feel safe in citing this as absolute corroboration. The Breton character of the ships, however, may be gathered (as well as from their direction and behavior) from the barred ensigns which they carry, recalling the barred standard set up at Nantes of Brittany, in Dulcert’s map of 1339,[143] just as the fleur-de-lis is planted by him at Paris.
Mayda and the Isle of Man
We have, then, in this fourteenth-century island a direct recorded association with the Arabs, followed long after by what have been thought to be Arabic names. We have also a pictorial and cartographical connection with Brittany and also an indication of relations with Ireland. This last is fortified by its next and, except Mayda, its most lasting name.
The great Catalan map of 1375[144] ([Fig. 5]) calls it Mam, which should doubtless be read as Man, for it was common to treat “m” and “n” as interchangeable, no less than “u” and “v” or “i” and “y.” Thus Pareto’s map of 1455[145] ([Fig. 21]) turns the Latin “hanc” into “hamc” and “Aragon” into “Aragom.” On some of the early maps, e. g. that of Juan da Napoli (fifteenth century),[146] the proper spelling “Man” is retained, just as it is retained and has been ever since early Celtic days, in the name of the home of “the little Manx nation” in the Irish Sea. That the same name should be carried farther afield and applied to a remote island of the Atlantic Ocean is quite in accordance with the natural course of things and the general experience of mankind. No doubt the name Man might be derived from other sources, but the chances are in this instance that the Irish people whose navigators found Brazil Island (or imagined it, if you please) did the same favor for the crescent-shaped “Man,” quite overriding for a hundred years any preceding or competing titles.
Almost immediately there was some competition, for the Pinelli map of 1384[147] calls it Jonzele (possibly to be read I Onzele, a word which has an Italian look but is of no certain derivation), reducing the delineation of the island to a mere shred, bringing Brazil close to it, and giving the pair a more northern and more inshore location. Another map of about the same period follows this lead, but there the divergence ended. Soleri of 1385[148] reverted to the former representation; and about the opening of the fifteenth century the regular showing of the pair was established—Brazil and Man, circle and crescent, by those names and in approximately the locations and relative position first stated.
It is true that the crescent island is sometimes represented without any name, as though it were well enough known to make a name unnecessary. But during the fifteenth century, when it is called anything, with a bare exception or two, it is called Man. Its shape and general location are substantially those of the Catalan map of 1375 on the maps of Juan da Napoli; Giraldi, 1426;[149] Beccario, 1426[150] and 1435[151] ([Fig. 20]); Bianco, 1436 and 1448;[152] Benincasa, 1467[153] and 1482[154] ([Fig. 22]); Roselli, 1468;[155] the Weimar map, (probably) about 1481;[156] Freducci, 1497;[157] and others—arguing surely a robust and confident tradition.
Resumption of Name “Mayda”
On sixteenth-century maps this island is still generally presented, though lacking on those of Ruysch, 1508;[158] Coppo, 1528[159] ([Fig. 13]); and Ribero, 1529;[160] but suddenly and almost completely the name Mayda in its various forms takes the place of Man, a substitution quite unaccounted for. There are hardly enough instances of survival of the older name to be worth mentioning. Was there some resuscitation of old records or charts, now lost again, which thus overcame the Celtic claim and supplied an Arabic or at least a quite alien and unusual designation? The little mystery is not likely ever to be cleared up. The previously mentioned map from the Ptolemy edition of 1513 ([Fig. 11]), which perhaps first introduces it, also presents several other innovations in departing from the crescent form and shifting the island a degree or two southward; and these changes surely seem to hint at some fresh information. That there was no supposed change of identity is shown by the fact that succeeding cartographers down to and beyond the middle of that century revert generally to the established crescent form and to nearly the same place in the ocean previously occupied by Man, while applying the new name Mayda. Thus an anonymous Portuguese map of 1519 or 1520,[161] reproduced by Kretschmer, and the graduated and numbered map of Prunes, 1553[162] ([Fig. 12]), concur in placing Mayda or Mayd at about latitude 48° N., the latitude of Quimper, Brittany, and almost exactly the same as that given by the Pizigani to the crescent island on its first appearance on the maps as a clearly recognizable entity.