Brendan's Fabulous Voyage: A Lecture delivered on January 19, 1893, before the Scottish Society of Literature and Art — John Shaqi
Brendan's Fabulous Voyage: A Lecture delivered on January 19, 1893, before the Scottish Society of Literature and ArtBute, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Marquess of
Religion
Brendan's Fabulous Voyage: A Lecture delivered on January 19, 1893, before the Scottish Society of Literature and Art
Bute, John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Marquess of
Brendan, Saint, the Voyager, approximately 483-577
In a week the provider came to them bringing more food and drink, but
warned them not to drink of the fountain, as its waters were stupefying.
He returned again at Pentecost, bringing more, but bade them now
provision the ship with water, and with dried bread. A week later they
started. When they were on the shore, one of the birds came and perched
upon the prow and said, 'Ye have kept the holy day of the Passover with
us this year. Ye shall also keep the same day with us in the year to
come. And where ye have been in the last year at the Supper of the Lord,
there shall ye be upon the said day in the year to come. Likewise shall
ye keep the Lord's night, the Passover Supper, where ye have kept it
before, that is, upon the back of the monster Jasconius. And after eight
months ye shall find the isle which is called Ailbey. There shall ye
keep the birth of Christ.' And so he flew back, and as the boat sailed
away, all the birds sang, 'Answer us, O God of our salvation, Who art
the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of them that are afar
off upon the sea.'
They were wandering upon the sea for three months, and afterwards came
to the isle Ailbey, where they stayed until the middle of January. There
is here described a monastery with twenty-four monks, who were fed on
miraculously provided bread, and, except the Abbat, never spoke. There
is rather a curious description of the church, which was square, with
stalls round the walls. It had three altars, all of crystal, as were
all the altar vessels, and seven lamps which were lit every evening by a
fiery arrow which came in and went out at a window.
They left Ailbey, and were carried about on the sea until the beginning
of Lent. They then came to an island where there was abundant
vegetation, roots, and streams full of fish, but some of the brethren
became insensible from one, two, or three days, from drinking the water.
I own that this and the remark about the water in the Eden of Birds
seems to me to be very likely plagiarised from the wine-river in
Lucian's _Traveller's Tale_. Hence they went north for three days, were
beating about for about twenty, and then eastward for three more, and
then came back for Maundy Thursday to the isle of the provider, who
again met them. All went on as before, and a week after Pentecost they
started again from the Eden of the Birds.
It will thus be observed that the real times of voyaging in each year
are limited to the months of February and March, and from about the
early part of June to the middle of December.
Forty days after starting in this new year they were much alarmed by a
vast fish which seemed to be coming after them to devour them, but it
was killed by another monster, breathing fire, which appeared against it
from the East, and tore it into three pieces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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