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
If Brendan had not failed,
perhaps Columba would not have come. The wanderings or explorations of
Brendan and his companions appear to have lasted several years, during
which it may be presumed that they were in the habit of laying up
somewhere for the winter. It was doubtless partly owing to the
restlessness which was a part of his nature, that he finally settled
nowhere, and returned to Ireland.
[Footnote 1: Reeve's _Adamnan_, 221.]
In Ireland he did a good deal of work, but Ita urged him to try and do
good elsewhere, and he went over with some of his friends to Britain,
possibly in connection with movements affected by the career of the
historic Arthur, who was killed at Camlan or Camelon in 537. The
Christian Irish at that time certainly made endeavours to assist the
Christian party among the Britons. The nun Edana was making her
attempts, either in person or by her disciples, to found her girls'
schools in the south of Scotland, and it is not impossible that Ita
thought that she might also accomplish some good by sending forth a
male emissary. In connection with Brendan's sojourn in Britain, there is
a most curious mention of the use of a Greek Liturgy somewhere in the
British Church. There is a statement that Brendan was at the head of the
celebrated Welsh monastery of Llancarfan. He also went over to Brittany
to see Gildas the Wise, who was bewailing the woes of his native land on
the shores of the Morbihan. He ultimately returned to the Western
Islands, and there succeeded at last in founding two monastic
settlements, one in Tiree, at a place which the writers call Bledua, and
one in an island called Ailech, which it seems to me may possibly mean
Islay. Then he went back to Ireland, and started another monastery in a
desert island in Loch Oisbsen, which was given to him by Aedh, the son
of Ethdach. Hence, however, he again moved in 559, and founded the great
monastery of Clonfert, an act which is the principal achievement of his
life.
He was friendly with the principal persons of his own race, time, and
class. He seems, as I have said, to have possessed the peculiar
temperament, which some call sensitive and others mediumistic, and which
leads to the phenomenon generally known as second-sight, for, putting
aside all other records about him which point in the same direction, it
is recorded of him, not only by Adamnan, but also by Cuimine the Fair,
that on one occasion when he came over, along with Comgall of Benchor,
Kenneth of Aghaboe, and Cormac o' Leathain of Durrow, to visit Columba,
who was then staying in Himba (Eilean na Naoimh, one of the Garveloch
islands, lying between Scarba and Mull), and Columba at their request
celebrated before them on the Sunday, he afterwards told Comgall and
Kenneth that during part of the ceremony Columba had seemed to him to be
standing at the bottom of a pillar of fire streaming heavenwards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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