MDMD(4)-questions-St. Brendan & a Cameo by an Old Pal!

[Sherwood, Harrison]

>From: 	bdm at storz.com

>134-27    Someone want to supply the Story of St. Brendan?

Infoseek and ye shall find!

Holy Mother Church--or at least her Web avatar--seems to be somewhat
(shall we say?) agnostic on the matter of St. Brendan the Navigator, not
having given this paragon pride of place in the online Lives of the
Saints or anything, but I was able to find some unofficial sites that
supply reasonably coherent summaries. The succinctest I found is
excerpted below. The complete article can be found at
http://www.castletown.com/brendan.htm, which seems to be sponsored by an
Irish-American publishing concern. And not the sliiightest bit
chauvinistic. Nossirree. Erin go _what_?

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"St Brendan's Isle"Or: Who Really Discovered America?"Maps of Columbus's
time often included an island called St. Brendan's Isle that was placed
in the western Atlantic ocean. Map makers of the time had no idea of its
exact position but did believe it existed somewhere west of Europe. It
was mentioned in a Latin text dating from the ninth century titled
Navigatio Santi Brendani Abatis (Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot). It
described the voyage as having taken place in the sixth century. Several
copies of this text have survived in monasteries throughout Europe. It
was an important part of folklore in medieval Europe and may have
influenced Columbus. "Historians relate that Brendan was born about 484
A.D. near Tralee in County Kerry. He was ordained by Bishop Erc and
sailed about northwest Europe spreading the Christian faith and founding
monasteries, the largest at Clonfert, County Galway, where he was buried
in 577 A.D. at the age of 93. The account of Brendan's voyage contained
a detailed description of the construction of his boat which was not
unlike the currachs still made in County Kerry today. Skeptics could not
accept that such a fragile vessel could possibly sail in the open sea.
Several passages in the legend also seemed incredible-they were "raised
up on the back of sea monsters", they "passed by crystals that rose up
to the sky", and were "pelted with flaming, foul smelling rocks by the
inhabitants of a large island on their route" [Cancun,
indubitably--Ed.]. They finally arrived at the beautiful land they
called "Promised Land of the Saints." They explored until they came to a
great river that divided the land. The journey of Brendan and his fellow
monks took seven years."

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The article goes on to recount the Heyerdahlic voyage of one Tim
Severin, a British navigation scholar who in 1976 embarked from Brandon
Creek on the Dingle peninsula in a carrach that he constructed using the
details described by Brendan, in an attempt to demonstrate that a voyage
to North America was possible. He was completed the voyage, thereby
proving beyond a shadow of a doubt pretty much nothing whatsoever.

Further into the article, an old buddy pops up: "More conclusive
evidence of Irish exploration of North America has come to the fore in
West Virginia. There, stone carvings have been discovered that have been
dated between 500 and 1000 A.D. Analysis by archaeologist Dr. Robert
Pyle and a leading language expert Dr. Barry Fell indicate that they are
written in Old Irish using the Ogham alphabet."

Hey Bar! Welcome back, dude! Missed ya! Come on in the old root cellar,
orient yerself toward the spring equinox, kick up yer feet and have a
Harp, you old reprobate! Slainte! Been a busy little beaver, I see!

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There is also a St. Brendan the Navigator Web Site at
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/4006/brendan.html, which recounts the
voyage in some more detail and supplies a bibliography.

Harrison "My Ogham tattoo sez: 'This is not a pipe'" Sherwood