"Saw it in all its varying moods--but above all, at even, when the setting sun went to his caverns below the sea, and the line of light along the glowing west seemed a road to the Fortunate Islands where the sorrows of earth never enter, and peace and beauty for ever dwell. It was a dim tradition of man's lost paradise, floating down the stream of time, for with curious unanimity the poets and sages both of Greece and Rome spoke of these Islands of the Blessed as located somewhere in the Western Ocean. The same idea from the earliest times has taken strong hold of the Celtic imagination, and reveals itself in many strange tales, which were extremely popular, especially with the peasantry on the western coast. To this day the existence of Hi Brasail, an enchanted land of joy and beauty, is very confidently believed by our western fishermen. It is seen from Aran once every seven years, as Brendan saw it in olden times, like a fairy city on the far horizon's verge." According to the records, Brendan was not first on this quest. Barinthus, a neighbouring monk, had fared seaward in search of a truant brother and had found him in the island called "Delicious", from which they sailed yet farther west and found other wonders. But at all events, however moved, Brendan bade his monks to fast with him forty days, then choosing fourteen of them, he built a great curragh, with ribs and frame of willow, hide-covered, and so with forty days of provisions they set out upon the trackless sea, steering for the "summer solstice". Seven years that voyage lasted: they reached island after island in the Atlantic main, "following God's guidance, fed by his Providence, and protected by his power". At length, it is said, they reached the continent of America and found the place where they landed "to be indeed a delicious country abounding in everything to gratify the palate and please the eye"; and they were about to push across the swift, silvery current that had borne them to the verge of this land, when an angel rose before their path and bid them turn homeward, instead of resting to enjoy. And so back to Ireland came Brendan the Navigator, the travelled Ulysses among Irish saints.