Brendans Fabulous Voyage | Page 6

has set himself to speculate how that story,
or the Arabian Nights in which it is incorporated, came to be known in
Ireland. I confess I do not agree with him. In the first place, the notion
is not particularly recondite, and it has at least this possible foundation
in fact, that, as I have been told by sailors, the back of a whale of
advanced years, when asleep at the surface, may be and has been
mistaken from some distance, greatly owing to the accretions upon it,
for the top of a reef. Again, a somewhat similar notion occurs in
Lucian's _Traveller's Tale_, which was much more likely to be known
to the Irish fabulist. Lastly, I must observe that all this is gloss. The
word whale (cete) is never applied to the animal but always fish (piscis)
or monster (bellua) or beast (bestie), and the whole thing, with the
notion of its vast size, and the attempt to join the tail to the mouth,
which brings it into connection with the emblem of eternity, which is
due, I believe, to the Phoenicians, but which we ourselves so often use
upon coffins and grave-stones, seems to bring it into connection rather
with the idea of the Midgard-Worm, the great under-lying
world-serpent which figures so largely in the mythic cosmogony of the
Scandinavians. I suggest that this is the notion, of which the romancer
may have heard from Scandinavian sources; and there is even a kind of
indication that it was associated in his mind with the idea of paganism,
as Brendan is made to speak elsewhere of God having made the most
terrible (_immanissimam_) of beasts subject unto them.
On leaving the spot where the monster had sunk, they first returned to
the provider's isle, from the top of which they perceived another near at
hand, covered with grass and woods and full of flowers, and thither
they went.

On the south shore of this island they found a river a little broader than
the ship, and up this they towed her for a mile, when they came to the
fountain-head of the stream. It was a wondrous fountain, and above it
there was a tree marvellously beautiful, spreading rather than high, but
all covered with white birds, so covered that they hid its foliage and
branches. (The notion is perhaps taken from a tree loaded with snow.)
'And when the man of God saw it, he began to think in himself what or
wherefore it should be, that such a multitude of birds should be
gathered together in one place. And the thing distressed him so, that he
wept, and fell down upon his knees, and besought the Lord, saying, "O
God, Who knowest the things which are unknown, and makest manifest
the things which are hidden, Thou knowest how that mine heart is
straitened; therefore I beseech Thee that it may please Thee to make
manifest unto me, Thy sinful servant, this mystery which now I do see
with mine eyes. And this I ask not for an desert of my worthiness, but
in respect of Thy mercy." When he had so spoken, behold, one of the
birds flew from the tree. From the ship, where the man of God was
sitting, his wings sounded as with the sound of little bells. He perched
upon the top of the prow, and began to spread his wings for joy, and
looked kindly upon the holy father Brendan. Then the man of God,
when he understood that the Lord had had regard unto his prayer, saith
unto the bird, "If thou be the messenger of God, tell me whence be
these birds, and wherefore they be gathered here." And it said, "We are
of that great ruin of the old enemy; but we have not fallen by sinning or
consenting; but we have been predestinated by the goodness and mercy
of God, for wherein we were created, hath our ruin come to pass,
through his fall and the fall of his crew. But God the Almighty, Who is
righteous and true, hath by His judgment sent us into this place. Pains
we suffer not. The presence of God in a sense we cannot see, so far has
He separated us from the company of them that stood firm. We wander
through the divers parts of this world, of the sky, and of the firmament,
and of the earths, even as other spirits who are sent forth [to minister].
But upon the holy days of the Lord, we take bodies such as Thou seest,
and by the ordinance of God we dwell here, and praise our Maker. As
for thee, thou and thy brethren are a year upon the way, and yet there
await you six. And where this day thou