St.
Brendan is a Celtic saint who was born in what is now County Kerry, Ireland,
about 486 A.D., approximately 25 years after the death of St. Patrick.
He was taken from his family at a very young age and raised by St. Aida
of Killeedy under the patronage of Bishop Erc of Kerry. He became a monk,
then a priest and finally an abbot. He had a very strong influence on
the Celtic church, which at the time was poorly organized, and is regarded
as one of Ireland's most important saints. He was responsible for founding
a number of abbeys and monasteries, including the one at Clonfert in Galway,
where he died about 578 A.D.
He is known as Brendan the "Voyager" or the
"Navigator" because of the many voyages he made around the British Isles
and to the coast of Brittany. Even skeptics concede that he visited the
Holy Isle of Iona on the west coast of Scotland where he met with St.
Columba. However, the voyage for which Brendan is best known is shrouded
in the midst of legend. This is the story of his search for the Land of
Promise, far away in the west. It seems that Brendan was visited by another
Irish monk who told him about this land far across the ocean. Thoroughly
intrigued, Brendan decided to see for himself. He built a special boat
out of oak bark with tanned ox hides stretched over a framework of ash,
provisioned it for a voyage of 40 days, and set off with 17 other monks.
He took along some extra ox hides and grease to dress them in case repairs
were needed during the voyage. Almost immediately they encountered bad
weather, stormy seas and high winds.
After 15 days they were blown onto
an island where they were met by a dog who led them to a settlement. There
a meal was prepared and waiting for them. They stayed three days, seeing
no one but always finding food prepared for them. Their next landfall
was the Island of Sheep, where in addition to large flocks of sheep there
were streams full of trout and the sea-weary monks could rest for a while.
By contrast, the next island they came to was devoid of all vegetation,
completely bare. They pulled their boat up and began making camp, including
building a fire. To their amazement the island began to move, gently at
first but then more strongly. The terrified monks raced back to their
boat and pushed off just in time to see the "island" swim away with their
fire still burning on its back. They had made camp on Jasconius, the biggest
whale of all. They were probably a lot more careful before building a
fire on the Paradise of Birds, which was their next stop. On this island
there were birds of every type and sort. They all joined the monks at
their prayers, and one little bird sat on Brendan's shoulder and told
him that the voyage would last not 40 days but 7 years.
For the next three
months they made another landfall and were exhausted when they finally
reached an island inhabited by an order of monks. This order lived under
a rule of silence, but the abbot broke the rule long enough to tell Brendan
that they had lived there for 80 years. In all that time they had experienced
no illness or mishaps of any kind. One of the monks with Brendan was so
impressed by this order that he asked and received permission to remain
with them. He was not with Brendan and the others when they reached the
very edge of Hell itself. Giant demons threw great lumps of burning slag
at them from huge fiery furnaces, and they could see rivers of gold fire
running down from the furnaces. Another of the monks fell overboard during
the bombardment and was lost forever.
Their adventures continued as they
were chased by a bad whale, saved by a good whale, and buffeted by storms
and high winds. Sometimes, though, it would be calm, so calm that they
could look down through the water and see fish lying in a circle, head
to tail. Once, when Brendan sang, the fish circled the boat to listen
to him. Another time they saw a tall crystal pillar in the sea, so high
that they could not see the top of it and covered with a wide-meshed net.
In it was an opening big enough for the boat so they sailed through it.
As they did so, they could see that the pillar extended even further into
the sea than it towered above. It took them three days to sail through
and around it. Finally after sailing through dense fog they reached their
destination. They were met by a young man who acted as their guide. They
explored the fringe of this Promised Land but were prevented from going
further by a great river, too large for them to cross. They returned to
Ireland by much the same route, though probably avoiding Hell. They even
encountered Jasconius the whale once again, and this time he helped by
towing the boat from the Paradise of Birds to the Island of Sheep. Shortly
after their return, Brendan died.
This story was very popular in the Middle
Ages, and so many versions of it exist that it took one American scholar,
Carl Selmer, nearly 30 years to trace them. In l959 he published a comprehensive
Latin version of NAVIGATIO SANTI BRENDANI ABBATIS - The Voyage of St.
Brendan the Abbot. For many years it was dismissed as pure fabrication
with no possibility of being true. Various destinations were suggested
for Brendan if he in fact ever made a voyage at all. These were all close
to the British Isles, although some did think he might have reached the
Canary Islands.
However, in the l970's Tim Severin became fascinated with
the Brendan story. He studied maps and charts and did extensive research
before coming up with his Stepping-Stone Route. He maintained that, by
using prevailing winds and currents, it would be possible for a small
boat to travel from Ireland to North America. He also maintained that
the only way to prove it was to do it. He had a boat built out of a framework
of ash and covered with ox hides. Experimentation proved that oak bark
does make the most seaworthy tanning solution for these hides. He named
the boat the BRENDAN (of course) and, with some like-minded friends, he
too set sail from Galway. As they traveled he realized that many of the
landmarks and other events mentioned in the NAVIGATIO make a lot of sense
to someone in a very small boat. The coast of Iceland, with its many active
volcanoes, might well have seemed like the edge of Hell, and an ice-berg
looks exactly like a crystal column.
The story
of this voyage is told in Tim Severin's book, THE BRENDAN VOYAGE. It did
not take them 40 days, but it didn't take 7 years either. They did leave
their boat in port over winter and finished the voyage the following year.
But on June 26th, 1977, after sailing through dense fog for several days,
they reached the coast of Newfoundland!
