The King's Mirror (Speculum regale-Konungs skuggsjá)
Philosophy
The King's Mirror (Speculum regale-Konungs skuggsjá)
Education of princes; Encyclopedias and dictionaries -- Early works to 1600; Scandinavia -- Civilization
There is another little island in that country, which the natives call
Inhisgluer.[187] There is a large village on this island and also a
church; for the population is about large enough for a parish. But when
people die there, they are not buried in the earth but are set up around
the church along the churchyard fence, and there they stand like living
men with their limbs all shriveled but their hair and nails unmarred.
They never decay and birds never light on them. And every one who is
living is able to recognize his father or grandfather and all the
successive ancestors from whom he has descended.
Footnote 187:
Inhisgluair, now Inishglory, is on the west coast of Ireland in county
Mayo. Giraldus mentions the legend but assigns it to a different
locality; see _Opera_, V, 83 and note. The _Irish Nennius_ (193) adds
that the nails and hair grow and that unsalted meat does not decay on
the island. The island is also referred to in the _Reliquiae
Antiquae_, II, 103.
There is still another quite extensive lake that is called Logri.[188]
In that lake is an islet inhabited by men who live a celibate life and
may be called, as one likes, either monks or hermits; they live there in
such numbers that they fill the island, though at times they are fewer.
It is said concerning this isle that it is healthful and quite free from
diseases, so that people grow aged more slowly there than elsewhere in
the land. But when one does grow very old and sickly and can see the end
of the days allotted by the Lord, he has to be carried to some place on
the mainland to die; for no one can die of disease on the island. One
may sicken and suffer there, but his spirit cannot depart from the body
before he has been removed from the island.
Footnote 188:
Giraldus refers briefly to this legend. _Opera_, V, 81. The editor of
Giraldus’ writings adds in a note (_ibid._): “the isle of the living
was three miles from Roscrea, parish of Cobally, in a lake called Loch
Cré, now dried up.” Roscrea is near the north edge of Munster not far
from the Slieve Bloom mountains. See also the _Irish Nennius_, 217.
Meyer identifies Logri with Loch Ree in west central Ireland. _Ériu_,
IV, 7.
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