By WILLIAM H. BABCOCK, LL.B.
The beginning of Irish navigation, like the beginning of everything
else, is hidden in the mist of antiquity. Vessels of some kind
obviously must have borne the successive waves of immigrants or
invaders to the island. Naturally they would remain in use afterwards
for trade, travel, exploration, and war. Irish ships may have been
among those of the Breton fleet that Cæsar dispersed at Vannes after
an obstinate struggle. Two or three centuries later we find Niall of
the Nine Hostages making nautical descents on the neighboring shores,
especially Britain: and there is every probability that ships of the
island conveyed some at least of the "Scots" (Irish) whom Gildas in
the sixth century describes as joining the Picts in furiously
storming the Roman wall.
The equally adventurous but more pacific work of exploration went on
also, if we may judge by that extraordinary series of Irish
sea-sagas, the _Imrama_, comprising the Voyages of Bran, Maelduin,
the Hui Corra, and St. Brendan--the last-mentioned deservedly the
most famous. These vary in their literary merits and in the merits of
their several parts, for they have been successively rewritten at
different periods, receiving always something of the color, belief,
and adornment which belonged to the writer's time; but under all may
be dimly traced, as in a palimpsest, the remote pagan original. At
their best they embody a lofty and touching poetry very subtle and
significant, as when we read of Bran's summoning by a visitant of
supernatural beauty to the isles of undying delight, where a thousand
years are but as a day; his return with a companion who had been
overcome by longing for Ireland and home; the man's falling to ashes
at the first touch of the native soil, as though he had been long
dead; and the flight of Bran and his crew from the real living world
to the islands of the blessed. At least equally fine and stirring is
St. Brendan's interview with the exiled spirit of Heaven, whose "sin
was but little", so that he and his fellows were given only the
pleasing penance of singing delightfully, in the guise of beautiful
birds, the praises of the God who showed them mercy and grace, amid
the charms of an earthly paradise. "Then all the birds sang evensong,
so that it was an heavenly noise to hear."
It is not very surprising that St. Brendan's legend, with such
qualities in prose and verse, made itself at home in many lands and
languages, and became for centuries a widespread popular favorite and
matter of general belief, also influencing the most permanent
literature of a high contemplative cast, which we might suppose to be
out of touch with it altogether. Certain of its more unusual
incidents are found even in Arab writings of romance founded on fact,
as in Edrisi's narrative of the Magrurin explorers of Lisbon and the
adventures of Sinbad related in the Arabian Nights; but perhaps here
we have a case of reciprocal borrowing such as may well occur when
ships' companies of different nations meet.
The most conspicuous, insistent, and repeated feature of all these
_Imrama_ is a belief in Atlantic islands fair enough or wonderful
enough to tempt the shore dwellers of Ireland far away and hold them
spell-bound for years. It is easy to ascribe these pictures to sunset
on the ocean, or the wonders of mirage; but all the time, within long
sailing distance, there actually were islands of delightful climate
and exceeding beauty. These had been occasionally reached from the
Mediterranean ever since early Carthaginian times, as classical
authors seem to tell us; why not also from Ireland, perhaps not quite
so distant? It is undoubted that the Canary Islands were never really
altogether forgotten, and the same is probably true of the Madeiras
and all three groups of Azores, though the knowledge that lingered in
Ireland was a distorted glimmering tradition of old voyages,
occasionally inciting to new ventures in the same field.
Some have supposed, though without sufficient evidence, that Saint
Brendan even made his way to America, and parts of that shore line in
several different latitudes have been selected as the scene of the
exploit. His first entry into serious geography is in the fine maps
of Dulcert, 1339, and the Pizigani, 1367, both of which plainly label
Madeira, Porto Santo, and Las Desertas--"The Fortunate Islands of St.
Brandan." That there may be no possibility of misunderstanding, the
Pizigani brothers present a full-length portrait of the holy
navigator himself bending over these islands with hands of
benediction. The inscription, though not the picture, was common,
thus applied, on the maps of the next century or two, and no other
interpretation of his voyage found any place until a later time.
Of course the fourteenth century was a long way from the sixth, when
the voyage was supposed to have been made, and we cannot take so late
a verdict as convincing proof of any fact. But it at least exhibits
the current interpretation of the written narrative among geographers
and mariners, the people best able to judge; and here the interval
was much less. The story itself seems to corroborate them in a
general way, if read naturally. One would say that it tells of a
voyage to the Canaries, of which one is unmistakably "the island
under Mount Atlas", and that this was undertaken by way of the Azores
and Madeira, with inevitable experience of great beauty in some
islands and volcanic terrors in others. Madeira may well have been
pitched upon by the interpreters as the suitable scene of a
particularly long tarrying by the way. Of course magic filled out all
gaps of real knowledge, and wonders grew with each new rewriting.
Whatever Brendan did, there is no doubt that Irish mariner-monks,
incited by the great awakening which followed St. Patrick's mission,
covered many seas in their frail vessels during the next three or
four centuries. They set up a flourishing religious establishment in
Orkney, made stepping stones of the intervening islands, and reached
Iceland some time in the eighth century, if not earlier. The
Norsemen, following in their tracks as always, found them there, and
the earliest Icelandic writings record their departure, leaving
behind them books, bells, and other souvenirs on an islet off shore
which still bears their name.
Did they keep before the Norsemen to America too? At least the
Norsemen thought so. For centuries the name Great Ireland or
Whitemen's Land was accepted in Norse geography as meaning a region
far west of Ireland, a parallel to Great Sweden (Russia), which lay
far east of Sweden. The saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni, first to attempt
colonizing America, makes it plain that his followers believed Great
Ireland to be somewhere in that region, and it is explicitly located
near Wineland by the twelfth century Landnamabok. Also there were
specific tales afloat of a distinguished Icelander lost at sea, who
was afterward found in a western region by an Irish vessel long
driven before the storm. The version most relied on came through one
Rafn, who had dwelt in Limerick; also through Thorfinn, earl of the
Orkneys.
Brazil, the old Irish _Breasail_, was another name for land west of
Ireland--where there is none short of America--on very many medieval
maps, of which perhaps a dozen are older than the year 1400, the
earliest yet found being that of Dalorto, 1325. Usually it appears as
a nearly circular disc of land opposite Munster, at first altogether
too near the Irish coast, as indeed the perfectly well-known Corvo
was drawn much too near the coast of Spain, or as even in the
sixteenth century, when Newfoundland had been repeatedly visited,
that island was shifted by divers mapmakers eastward towards Ireland,
almost to the conventional station of Brazil. Also, not long
afterwards, the maps of Nicolay and Zaltieri adopted the reverse
treatment of transferring Brazil to Newfoundland waters, as if
recognizing past error and restoring its proper place.
The name Brazil appears not to have been adopted by the Norsemen, but
there is one fifteenth century map, perhaps of 1480, preserved in
Milan, which shows this large disc-form "Brazil" just below Greenland
("Illa Verde"), in such relation that the mapmaker really must have
known of Labrador under the former name and believed that it could be
readily reached from that Norse colony.
It seems altogether likely that "Brazil" was applied to the entire
outjutting region of America surrounding the Gulf of St.
Lawrence--that part of this continent which is by far the nearest
Ireland. Besides the facts above stated, certain coincidences of real
geography and of these old maps favor that belief, and they are quite
unlikely to have been guessed or invented. Thus certain maps,
beginning with 1375, while keeping the circular external outline of
Ireland, reduce the land area to a mere ring, enclosing an expanse of
water dotted with islands; and certain other maps show it still
nearly circular externally, and solid, but divided into two parts by
a curved channel nearly from north to south. The former exposition is
possible enough to one more concerned with the nearly enclosed Gulf
of St. Lawrence and its islands than with its two comparatively
narrow outlets; the second was afterward repeated approximately by
Gastoldi's map illustrating Ramusio when he was somehow moved to
minimize the width of the Gulf, though well remembering the straits
of Belle Isle and Cabot. There are some other coincidences, but it is
unnecessary to dwell on them. Land west of Ireland must be either
pure fancy or the very region in question, and it is hardly
believable that fancy could guess so accurately as to two different
interpretations of real though unusual geography and give them right
latitude, with such an old Irish name (Brazil) as might naturally
have been conferred in the early voyaging times. That an extensive
region, chiefly mainland, should be represented as an island is no
objection, as anyone will see by examining the maps which break up
everything north of South America in the years next following the
achievements of Columbus and Cabot. There was a natural tendency to
expect nothing but islands short of Asia.
It seems likely, therefore, that America was actually reached by the
Irish even before the Norsemen and certainly long before all other
Europeans.