After a seven-years' voyage Brendan returned home to his own country without having found his Earthly Paradise, and his people and his folic at home "brought him," says the Irish Life, "treasures and gifts as if they were giving them to God"! His foster-mother St. Ita now advised him not to put forth in search of that glorious land in those dead stained skins which formed his currachs, for it was a holy land he sought, and he should look for it in wooden vessels. Then Brendan built himself "a great marvellous vessel, distinguished and huge." He first sailed to Aran to consort with St. Enda, but after a month he heaved anchor and sailed once more into the West. He reaches the Isle of Paradise after many adventures, and is invited on shore by an old man "without any human raiment, but all his body full of bright white feathers like a dove or a sea-mew, and it was almost the speech of an angel that he had." "O ye toilsome men," he said, "O hallowed pilgrims, O folk that entreat the heavenly rewards, O ever-weary life expecting this land, stay a little now from your labour." The land is described in terms that forcibly record the delights of the pagan Elysium of Moy Mell, and prove how intimately the Brendan legend is bound up with primitive pre-Christian mythological beliefs. "The delightful fields of the land" are described as "radiant, famous, lovable,"--"a land odorous, flower-smooth, blessed, a land many-melodied, musical, shouting-for-joy, unmournful." "Happy," said the old man, "shall he be with well-deservingness and with good deeds, whom Brandan, son of Finnlug, shall call into union with him on that side to inhabit for ever and ever the island whereon we stand."