Brendans Fabulous Voyage | Page 8

about twenty, and then eastward for three more, and then came back for Maundy Thursday to the isle of the provider, who again met them. All went on as before, and a week after Pentecost they started again from the Eden of the Birds.
It will thus be observed that the real times of voyaging in each year are limited to the months of February and March, and from about the early part of June to the middle of December.
Forty days after starting in this new year they were much alarmed by a vast fish which seemed to be coming after them to devour them, but it was killed by another monster, breathing fire, which appeared against it from the East, and tore it into three pieces.
The next day they came to a large and grassy island, where they found the tail portion of the monster fish. On this island they beached the ship, pitched the tent, and stayed three months, during which the sea was too stormy for travel. They lived for the three months on part of the monster, the rest of which was devoured by beasts, but another portion of a fish was afterwards washed up, and they made a salt provision of it--though as to Brendan himself, it is remarked that he was a consistent vegetarian, having never, since his ordination, eaten anything wherein had been the breath of life. Three days after this, the sea being stiller, they set out again towards the North.
One day they saw an island in the distance, and Brendan told them that there were three companies, of children, of young men, and of elders, and that one of the three brethren last come was there to make his earthly pilgrimage. They came to shore. The island was so flat that it seemed level with the sea. It had no trees nor anything that wind can shake. It was vast, and was covered with something which the Latin text calls _scalt?_--a word which I have failed to find in Ducange or in any other authority which I have been able to consult. It is, however, evidently, from the context, some kind of ground fruit, and may perhaps be the strawberry or the Blaeberry--although the Latin for these seems to be generally fragum and bacca myrtilii. This fruit was white or _purpureus_--wherein another difficulty arises as to the meaning of purpureus. The individual berries were as big as large balls, and tasted like honey. In this island were the three companies, who seemed to be moving and standing in a kind of sacred dance, two moving round while the one which had taken the farthest place stood still and sang, 'The Saints shall go from strength to strength: the God of gods will appear in Zion.' It is vexatious that here the question of colour again arises, as something very picturesque is evidently intended to be described. The company of children were clad in pure and glistering white, but the Latin, which is verbally followed by the French, gives the colour of the young men's garments as hyacinthine, and that of the elders' as purple. I have consulted all the authorities upon the question that I can. The result is that it is disputed whether hyacinthine means red or blue or both, and whether the Latin purple was red or plum-coloured. I hazard the conjecture that there is here an attempt to symbolize innocence, vigour, and ripeness, and that as the first colour is certainly white, the others may be red and what we call purple.
The voyagers landed at the fourth hour (10 A.M.) and the dance went on until noon, when the three companies sang together the lxvii., the lxx., and the cxvi. Psalms, adding again, 'the God of gods will appear in Zion.' At 3 P.M. they sang likewise Psalms cxxx., cxxxiii., and what is called in the Septuagint the cxlvii., viz., the last nine verses of that so called in the A.V. At even they sang the lxv., the civ., the cxiii., and then the whole 15 songs of degrees, during which they sat. When this was done, a bright cloud overshadowed the island, a cloud so bright that it blinded the sight of the voyagers, but they could still hear the sacred song going on without ceasing until midnight (_vigilie matutin?_) when they heard sung Psalms cxlviii., cxlix., and cl., and then what are called '12 Psalms according to the Psalter, up to "The fool hath said in his heart,"'--an apparent reference to the present Roman Breviary arrangement by which the xth is united (as in the Septuagint) with the ixth, and the vth transferred out of its order. As day broke, the cloud passed away from over the island and the companies sang Psalms li., xc., and lxiii.,