COUNCIL

OF

The Percy Society.

President.

THE RT. HON. LORD BRAYBROOKE, F.S.A.

THOMAS AMYOT, Esq. F.R.S. TREAS. S.A.

WILLIAM HENRY BLACK, Esq.

WILLIAM CHAPPELL, Esq. F.S.A.

J. PAYNE COLLIER, Esq. F.S.A.

C. PURTON COOPER, Esq. Q.C., F.R.S., F.S.A.

PETER CUNNINGHAM, Esq.

J. H. DIXON, Esq.

WILLIAM JERDAN, Esq. F.S.A., M.R.S.L.

CAPTAIN JOHNS, R.M.

T. J. PETTIGREW, Esq. F.R.S., F.S.A.

LEWIS POCOCK, Esq. F.S.A.

SIR CUTHBERT SHARP.

WILLIAM SANDYS, Esq. F.S.A.

WILLIAM J. THOMS, Esq. F.S.A.

THOMAS WRIGHT, Esq. M.A., F.S.A., Secretary and

Treasurer.

PREFACE.

St.

ONE of the most remarkable and widely spread legends of the Middle Ages, was that of St. Brandan. Almost all nations which lived near the sea have had their legendary navigators. Brandan was a Christian Ulysses, and his story had much the same influence on the western Catholics, as the Odyssey upon the Greeks. There are several remarkable points of similarity between St. Brandan and the Sinbad of the Arabian Nights, and at least one incident in the two narratives is identical,- that of the disaster on the back of the great fish. How far the Christians of the West were acquainted with the story of Sinbad it is difficult to say, but we have nearly conclusive reasons for believing that the legend of St. Brandan was known at an early period to the Arabs. Some of the Arabian geographers describe the "Island of Sheep," and the "Island of Birds," in the Western Ocean, in words which must have been taken from our Christian legend.

The legend of St. Brandan exercised an influence on geographical science down to a late

period, and it entered as an important element in the feelings of the Spanish sailors when they went to the discovery of America. There are, indeed, some incidents in the legend which might be supposed to have arisen from the traditional stories of early adventurers, (for such there were without doubt), who had been accidentally or designedly carried far out in the extreme west. So late as the end of the sixteenth century, the Spaniards and Portuguese believed in the existence of the Isle of St. Brandan, situated in the direction of the Canaries, which was seen sometimes by accident, but which could never be found when sought for (quando se busca no se halla.) This notion existed still later in Ireland. Several expeditions were fitted out by the Spaniards in search of this island; a king of Portugal is said to have made a conditional cession of it to another person, "when it should be found"; and when the crown of Portugal ceded its right over the Canaries to the Castilians, the treaty included the Island of St. Brandan, as the island which had not yet been found. There were many who believed that this isle of St. Brandan had served as the retreat of Don Rodrigo, when Spain was invaded by the Arabs, and at a later period of king Sebastian, after the fatal battle of Alcazar.

As far as I have been able to trace the history of the Legend of St. Brandan, I am inclined to