Brendans Fabulous Voyage

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Brendan's Fabulous Voyage

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Title: Brendan's Fabulous Voyage
Author: John Patrick Crichton Stuart Bute
Release Date: December 18, 2005 [EBook #17343]
Language: English
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ESSAYS

BY
JOHN, THIRD MARQUESS OF BUTE.
BRENDAN'S FABULOUS VOYAGE.
[A LECTURE DELIVERED ON JANUARY 19, 1893, BEFORE THE
SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF LITERATURE AND ART.]
New Edition.
1911.

II.
It has been thought desirable to reprint the Essays and other short
Works of the late Marquess of Bute in an inexpensive form likely to be
useful to the general reader, and thereby to make them more widely
known. Should this, the second of the proposed series, prove acceptable,
it will be followed by others at short intervals.

BRENDAN'S FABULOUS VOYAGE.
[_A Lecture delivered on January 19, 1893, before the Scottish Society
of Literature and Art_.]
Brendan, the son of Finnlogh O' Alta, was born at Tralee in Kerry, in
the year 481 or 482.[1] He had a pedigree which connected him with
the rulers of Ireland, and thus perhaps secured for him a social
prominence which he would not otherwise have enjoyed. Nature seems
to have endowed him with an highly wrought and sensitive
temperament. Putting aside altogether the idealism which caused him,
like so many others of his time and race, to give himself to the Church,
he displayed throughout life a restlessness which led him to constant
journeys, sometimes of the nature of migrations, and the constant
inception of projects to which he did not continue long to adhere; and

in the statements about him there are elements from which I conjecture
that he was probably of the class of persons who furnish good subjects
for hypnotic experiments. When he was a year old he was handed over
to the care of the nun Ita, when she dwelt at the foot of Mount Luachra.
With her he remained until he was seven years old, when she sent him
to Bishop Erc, by whom he had been baptized, but during the whole of
her life, which lasted nearly as long as his own, he never ceased to
regard and to treat her with all the affectionate reverence of a son. His
education was continued under Erc, until he grew towards manhood,
when he visited other parts of Ireland for the sake of study, but it was to
Erc that he returned to be ordained to the Presbyterate. At that period
there was a sort of passion among the Celtic clergy for retiring into
deserts after the manner of the monks and hermits of Egypt, and the
islands of the Western and Northern ocean, if they could show nothing
like the burning sands of Africa, supplied deserts enough of a different
sort. It was only in accordance then with a common custom of his day,
that Brendan, after his ordination, set out by sea with a few companions,
to find a place where to found a monastery. It is to be remarked also
that this was just about the time of the migration of the Royal Race of
the Dalriads to the country which has ultimately received from them
the name of Scotland, and the project therefore bears a strong
resemblance to that in which Columba succeeded about 60 years later.
If Brendan had not failed, perhaps Columba would not have come. The
wanderings or explorations of Brendan and his companions appear to
have lasted several years, during which it may be presumed that they
were in the habit of laying up somewhere for the winter. It was
doubtless partly owing to the restlessness which was a part of his nature,
that he finally settled nowhere, and returned to Ireland.
[Footnote 1: Reeve's Adamnan, 221.]
In Ireland he did a good deal of work, but Ita urged him to try and do
good elsewhere, and he went over with some of his friends to Britain,
possibly in connection with movements affected by the career of the
historic Arthur, who was killed at Camlan or Camelon in 537. The
Christian Irish at that time certainly made endeavours to assist the
Christian party among the Britons. The nun Edana was making her

attempts, either in person or by her disciples, to found her girls' schools
in the south of