Thus far, in the rather redundant style of such literature, from the Life of Brenainn in the Lives of the Saints of this old manuscript. After a century and a half of disappearance this manuscript was accidentally discovered in 1814, in a walled-up recess, by workmen engaged on repairs. Mr. Westropp holds that this Lismore version is the “simplest and probably the earliest;”[45] but its full-blown development of certain marvels (such as the spending of every Easter for at least five years on the back of a vast sea monster as a substitute for an island) may well awaken a question as to the validity of this conjecture. However, the suggestion of the voyage by a dream seems likely enough, and his mood was in keeping with the anchorite enthusiasm of his time. Of course he promptly set forth to find his “promised land;” at first, in a hide-covered craft, with failure in spite of long endeavor; afterward, by advice of a holy woman, in a large wooden vessel, built in Connaught and manned by sixty religious men, with final success. ANOTHER VERSION Another version gives the credit of the first incitement to a purely human visitor, a friendly abbot, St. Brendan’s aim being to reach an island “just under Mount Atlas.” Here a holy predecessor, Mernoc by name, long vanished from among men, was believed to have hidden himself in “the first home of Adam and Eve.” To all readers this was a fairly precise location for the earthly paradise. The great Atlas chain forms a conspicuous feature of medieval maps, running down to sea (as it does in reality) near Lanzarote and Fuerteventura, the innermost of the Canaries, which seem like detached, nearly submerged, summits of the range. This narrative is longer and more detailed than that of the Book of Lismore and gives more plentiful indications of voyaging, especially toward the end, in southern seas. In its picture of volcanic fires it recalls occasional outbursts of Teneriffe and its neighbors. “They saw a hill all on fire, and the fire stood on each side of the hill like a wall, all burning.” A visit is also recorded to a neighboring land, apparently continental, which the adventurers penetrated for forty days’ travel to the banks of a magical river, whence they brought away “fruit and jewels.” This may well be meant for Africa, obviously quite near these Fortunate Islands. ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN THE ORIGIN OF THE BRENDAN NARRATIVES It has been intimated that the narratives of “St. Brendan’s Navigation” may have originated in misunderstood tales of his early sea wanderings around the coasts of Ireland seeking for a monastery site. He was successful in this at least, being best known (excepting as a discoverer) for the great religious establishment at Clonfert, not the first which he founded in the sixth century but the most widely known and the greatest.