And then anon they sailed west three days and three nights ere they
saw any land, wherefore they were right heavy, but soon after, as
God would, they saw a fair island full of flowers, herbs, and trees;
whereof they thanked God of His good grace, and anon they went on land.
And when they had gone long in this, they found a full fair well, and
thereby stood a fair tree full of boughs, and on every bough sat a fair
bird, and they sat so thick on the tree that unnethe any leaf of the
tree might be seen. The number of them was so great and they sang so
merrily that it was an heavenly noise to hear, wherefore Saint Brandon
kneeled down on his knees and wept for joy, and made his prayers
devoutly to our Lord God to know what these birds meant. And then anon
one of these birds fled from the tree to Saint Brandon, and he with
flickering of his wings made a full merry noise like a fiddle, that
him seemed he heard never so joyful a melody. And then Saint Brandon
commanded the bird to tell him the cause why they sat so thick on the
tree and sang so merrily. And then the bird said: "Sometime we were
angels in heaven. But when our master Lucifer fell down into hell for
his high pride, we fell with him for our offences, some higher and some
lower, after the quality of the trespass, and because our trespass is
but little, therefore our Lord hath set us here, out of all pain, in
full great joy and mirth, after His pleasing, here to serve Him in
this tree in the best manner we can. The Sunday is a day of rest from
all worldly occupation, and therefore this day all we be made as white
as any snow for to praise our Lord in the best wise we may." And then
this bird said to Saint Brandon: "It is twelve months passed that ye
departed from your abbey, and in the seventh year hereafter ye shall
see the place that ye desire to come to. And all these seven years, ye
shall keep your Easter here with us every year, and in the end of the
seventh year ye shall come unto the Land of Behest."
And this was on Easter Day that the bird said these words to Saint
Brandon; and then this fowl flew again to his fellows that sat on
the tree, and then the birds began to sing evensong so merrily that
it was an heavenly noise to hear. And after supper Saint Brandon and
his fellows went to bed and slept well; and on the morn they arose
betimes, and then those birds began matins, prime, and hours, and all
such service as Christian men use to sing. And Saint Brandon with his
fellows abode there eight weeks, till Trinity Sunday was passed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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