He also reported that the wind had swung a little to the southeast and would favor them. And so things became plain to everyone, and Brendan knew they must set sail next day.
For fifteen days they sailed out to the northwest, never knowing where they were going, never controlling where the winds blew them. From time to time Brendan himself took a turn at steering, but even he could not determine the direction of his boat. After fifteen days the wind dropped. Not so much as a sigh filled the great sail, and the men took out their oars and rowed. That was how their voyage continued, sailing and rowing, rowing and sailing, and they began to make fine progress across the wide straits of the Atlantic Ocean.
Have you ever been at sea? This is what you can expect. The sky assumes an importance it never receives on land. At sea, you have only two landscapes filling your eye, one above and one below. The one above can be gray or blue or white or hidden by fog. And the one below will be green and gray and black and blue, sometimes all at once. Above you, all will be stillness and unmoving vista, save for the days when clouds pile across the sky like pillows of down taken from giant geese. The landscape beside and below you, namely the sea, will heave and chug and pull and splash. No portion will be still—even if it appears to be. Every particle of it will be in motion, every second of the day.
Nothing on the surface or in the deep sits still. All heaves and shifts; the sea moves this way and that, shunting and slipping and slopping, here, there and everywhere.
But if you look very closely at the sky and the sea, you begin to understand that all is not air and water. Sometimes above your head, like a dark flake or a faint pattern, a flight of birds will pass, intent on a migration to or from Africa. They may be swifts, who sleep on the wing; they may be swallows or martins. Sight of them does not necessarily mean you have neared landfall, as happened to Noah and Columbus. All you may be seeing is a flock of birds traveling onward.
And if you look down at the waters, you begin to see other wonders in that green-green race that sloshes past your leather hull made from the hides of forty fat cattle. Is that a jellyfish you see there? A great mauve blob shimmering just below the surface of the sea? Or did you glimpse a creature fly up out of the water, describe an arc above the surface, and then fall back again with almost no splash? In which case, here be dolphins. Or porpoises. Or basking sharks. They bring good luck, and mariners welcome their attentions, especially the dolphins.
We do well to remember dolphins. If a dolphin ails, then others come alongside and nudge him gently through the waters; because a dolphin must keep moving in order to keep breathing. We all have need of our dolphins alongside us from time to time.
And in those North Atlantic waters, two other great sights might have greeted our beloved Brendan and his fellow mariners. Somewhere out there, among the billows and the surges, great green creatures mosey along, offending nobody and feeding many others. These are the whales of the North Atlantic, and if you are very lucky, you will hear them sing—they sing deep, vast, musical sounds, like melodic foghorns, like church organs in deep caves, like the sound of the earth before Man was born.
Lastly, your eye will be dazzled by something extraordinary. It will not be something to sail near; it will be a thing to avoid, as the whales do. You will not be able to escape looking at it; because you will never have seen a color so white in your life. This will be an iceberg—and then, if you draw near, you will find that the ice, that white, white ice, whiter than snow or hoarfrost or the freshest milk, is, inside itself, blue. But some of you already know that.
Those sights were there in Brendan’s day—and when they set sail across the North Atlantic, he and his men saw a multitude of other wonders too.
The first place their boat came to had high cliffs. Streams of fresh water poured like waterfalls straight over these cliffs into the sea. The mariners had run out of food, and they needed desperately to find some people who would supply their boat. But they sailed and they sailed around that high rocky island and couldn’t find a place to land. Then on the third day Brendan himself saw an entry, by chance, in a sudden flash of sunlight. He thanked God for the vision, and they sailed straight in.
When they disembarked, a dog came up to them, wagging his tail. He seemed to be leading them, and Brendan believed the dog was a messenger that God had sent. So they followed the dog, and they came to a town. The dog led them to a great house where the walls were hung with drinking vessels and harness pieces. They had evidently reached the home of a wealthy man. No people appeared, but miraculously, food and drink were placed on the table, and basins of water were laid out for them to wash their poor feet.
After a grand meal of excellent fish and wonderful bread and all the drink they needed, Brendan and his crew took to bed in very comfortable accommodation.
During the night Brendan had a dream. Now I should have mentioned that, as they were sailing away from one of the islands near Ireland, three monks came forward and begged Brendan to take them with him. He did so, but with considerable reservations because there was one of these monks whom he didn’t trust. That night, Brendan dreamed that he saw a devil enter this monk’s heart.
They stayed in the great house for three days and three nights, and then the time came to set forth again. Before they left, he warned the monks not to steal anything. They all cried out, “Oh, no! Never!” but Brendan looked at the man he didn’t trust and called the man forth from the rest of the group.
He said to him, “Last night the Devil gave you something. Where is it?”
The unfortunate monk looked astounded. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a silver bridle that had been hanging on the wall. At that moment everyone saw a little devil leap from the man’s chest and flap away, complaining bitterly. The thieving monk fell down dead, and they buried him on the island of the flowing waterfalls. Back in those days, that was the way of the world, and the ways of the world were various.
After many days and many nights on the wild wasteland of the ocean, they reached the next place—a lovely island. Brendan called it the Isle of the Sheep because when they went ashore they saw flocks of sheep, all white in color, and many of the sheep had their little lambs with them.
Now—conjure to your brain the picture of that day. The sun shone with the clear and bright light of the North Atlantic. Under blue skies, with an occasional little riffle of cloud like the tail of a mare, the big leather boat was rowed by these strong Kerrymen to a small, sandy harbor. Not only was it rowed, but a favorable wind came behind them and greatly assisted them, bulging their big leather sail.
See them in your mind’s eye. The boat edged up on the sand with a pleasing, crunching noise. Out climbed the monks, led by Brendan. They stood on the pretty little shore and stretched their arms and legs, this group of rough-hewn and warmhearted men in their long whitish cassocks. All of them had beards—because how could they have shaved at sea? Their faces had been creased brown by the winds, and some had blisters on their hands from the rough wood of the oars.
But they slapped each other on the back, they joked and roared with laughter—and they bowed their heads in gentle prayer led by Brendan.
All of them knew what time of year it was. Easter had arrived; they had landed on the Isle of Sheep in time for Holy Thursday. Brendan instructed his men to capture a spotless lamb so that it could represent the Lamb of God as they celebrated Easter.
Next morning, Good Friday, a man approached, and he recognized at once that his island had been graced by the presence of a wonderful holy leader. He threw himself at Brendan’s feet and declared himself honored to have been chosen by God as Brendan’s next supplier. You might say that both men had a very good knack for conducting business! They all celebrated Easter, and they left the Faroe Islands weighed down with almost more supplies than the boat could hold. Yes, the Faroe Islands—out there in the Atlantic, those were the Isles of the Sheep.
What came next was in some ways the most surprising thing that ever happened to
Brendan—or indeed to any Irish monk, or perhaps any Irishman. They pushed out to sea again, intending to sail, following the directions of the Faroe Islander, to a place he called “The Paradise of Birds.” Now this, they felt, was getting a little more like what they had hoped to find—an exotic place as described in the legends of the Promised Land of the Saints. But long, long before they could reach it, the boat ran aground.
They looked out over the side, down at the ground that had halted them. It had no grass. All they could see on its surface was some driftwood; it was a scrabby sort of a place, uninteresting and gray, harsh to the touch, with barnacles and seaweed. Some of the crew got out and tried to push the boat off the place where it had grounded. They found themselves unable to do that, so they were reduced to sitting down and eating their supper. A few reflected surprise that Brendan stayed in the boat and never climbed out. Brendan, however, knew something about the island, something secret and frightening, and he did not want his monks to know.
That night, some monks slept in the boat, and some slept on the island. Next morning, the crew decided to cook some of the raw meat from the supplies. They lit a fire of the driftwood on the island, and to their horror and amazement, the island began to move. At top speed, they scrambled back into the boat, abandoning the burning fire and the pot sitting on it. Brendan held out his hand to help each and every man aboard, and he told them to hoist the sail as fast as they could.
They hoisted the sail; it bellied with the wind. But as the boat pulled out from the island, the island seemed to slip away from under the boat. Amazing! Each went in different directions, with the island sailing away much faster than the boat. They watched it for one, two, three miles, with the fire still burning on it.
This crew of innocent men was very puzzled by this matter until Brendan explained: they had not been grounded on an island—they had come to rest on the back of a great whale!
By now the North Atlantic had truly begun to open up to them. But it’s important to remember that Brendan did not undertake this great voyage for any personal esteem. He sailed out there for the greater glory of God; for him it was a form of worship, a long and arduous prayer. At the beginning of the voyage he had pledged himself to follow God’s instructions as they reached him and as he interpreted them. And so things became plain to everyone.
The Paradise of Birds, their next port of call, looked marvelous. Flowers grew there, so abundant and multitudinous that it looked as if part of the island was one great colorful carpet. Once again they sailed all around the shores until they found a place where they could land. A silver river exactly as wide as the boat turned out to be their avenue of entry. But it proved too shallow for the draft of the boat, so all the crew climbed out and stood in the bright river, with only Brendan remaining aboard.
Two monks hitched ropes to the prow; they lowered the sail, hauled the boat inland along the stream, and came to rest not far from the source of the river. On the bank stood a tree whose trunk was thicker than anything they had ever seen, as thick as one of the famous American redwood trees through which men have cut roadways.
In the branches of this great tree sat so many white birds that it looked as though the tree had white leaves. Brendan found this image so profound that he prayed to God for a sign that would tell him what it meant. As soon as he had finished his prayer, one of the white birds flew down from the tree, and the noise of her wings sounded like the ringing of a little silver bell. The bird sat on the prow of the boat and began to speak.
She told Brendan and his amazed crew that all the birds on the tree were spirits who had been released by God at the fall of Lucifer. Ever since then, they had traveled the world advising people how to celebrate God—and their favorite resting place was this tree.
The white bird now told Brendan she had a task: to tell him where he and his crew must celebrate the great holy days of the year. They were to stay on the island of the birds until Pentecost was over, forty days after Easter. Then they were to travel on to the island of a saint called Ailbe, where they should celebrate Christmas—and then back to the Isles of the Sheep for Easter, and then Pentecost again with the birds. And they had to do this for seven years before they would be released to find America.
When she had imparted this information, the white bird flew from the prow of the boat up into the tree. As she landed there, all the other birds began to sing hymns and psalms, and they kept time to the sacred music by beating their wings. The sound made a melody that could be heard a thousand miles out to sea.
After spending the allotted time of forty days and forty nights on the Paradise of Birds, Brendan and his monks set out with heavy hearts for the island of Saint Ailbe. Getting there was no easy matter. The summer sun burned them, and the sudden squalls and great gales of the ocean buffeted them here and there, but finally they found the island. When they landed on it, an old monk met them, but he never said a word. It soon dawned on Brendan that this was a silent community where, for the love and honor of God, nobody ever spoke.
Then several other monks arrived, carrying candles. With gestures they invited Brendan and his men inland and confirmed that this was indeed the island of Saint Ailbe and that the Irishmen were to stay there for Christmas. They led the sailors to the chapel to pray. Inside the church, which was a perfect square, the abbot broke his silence and told Brendan that this was an island on which nobody ever grew old.
As they knelt there, a burning arrow flew in through the window and lit all the candles in the church. Brendan and his men dropped to their knees in wonder. And they stayed there while the monks of the island turned the earth, tilled the soil, and were happy.
Bear in mind now that Brendan had received an instruction from God to sail the ocean for seven years before he could find the Promised Land of the Saints. When his first spell ended on the island of Saint Ailbe, that is, when Christmas had passed, he and his crew took to sea again. Now, in the remainder of the seven years, they wandered to and fro. Between the island where the white sheep lived, the island of the birds, and the island of Saint Ailbe, they had rare adventures.
One island they came to had a well, and they were parched with thirst. So they drank long and deep from the well, and they all fell asleep. The man who had one drink of water slept for one whole day, the man who had two drinks slept for two days, and the man who was greedy and had three drinks slept for three days. But eventually they all woke up and went on their way.
And then they came to another island where they could hear the sound of a sledgehammer on an anvil. Somebody on the land saw the boat, and a blacksmith came running out with rage on his face. In his hand he held huge iron tongs, and in the teeth of the tongs blazed a lump of coal. He threw this coal at the boat, and it fell sizzling into the water a few feet from where the oars touched the sea. Other islanders came out and also threw burning coals, but luckily they missed, and the boat sailed on.
After this, they were traveling along merrily, when suddenly they observed that the sea seemed still and thick and no matter how they rowed, they couldn’t seem to get themselves out of it. But they rowed for forty days and forty nights, and eventually they pulled clear.
As soon as they did, a great sea creature began to pursue them, steam blowing out his nose. They were terrified and tried to row as fast as they could, and get every last puff of wind into the leather sail. But closer and closer the creature came, until they could feel his hot blowing breath on their faces and see his bulbous eyes glaring red and green at them, and the foam of his nose steaming.
They prayed to God, oh, they prayed and prayed in anguish, and after the third prayer went up like a sigh, a new creature appeared on the opposite side of the boat. He had long teeth with edges like saws, and he swam round the stern as smooth as a spear. In deadly silence he attacked the dragon that was following the boat, and he bit the vile creature into three bloody chunks, and the monks went on safe and sound, thankful to God that their prayers had been heard.
For mo
nths and months they sailed to and fro on the ocean, and then it became years and years. Each Easter they found the island with the sheep, each Pentecost the island of the white birds, and each Christmas the island of Saint Ailbe, with its silent monks and the people who never grew old. Soon it was time for their reward.
One morning, with the sun shining over their shoulders, they at last sailed due west. Little white waves pranced on the surface of the sea, and little white clouds danced on the floor of the sky.
The watchman cried out, “Look! Look ahead!” and everybody turned so fast the boat almost keeled over. There, on the waves, sailed a wondrous tower of crystal. It was so high they could not see the top of it, and it went down so deep into the water that they could not see the bottom of it, even though the sea was as clear as glass at that point.
Furthermore, the tower was wrapped in a great, silver net whose meshes were so wide that the boat was able to sail through it. And sail through they did, and out the other side, under a sort of natural bridge in this icy crystal tower, and when they had sailed through it, they somehow knew they were on course for the magical country they had hoped to see.
Soon they sighted land, and their hearts told them that this was their destination as promised to them by God, as suggested to Brendan by the aged holy man, his friend Barrind. But suddenly a great fog came down. Just as everybody began to fret, Brendan recalled that one of the holy men he had met had told him they would sail into their promised land under the protection of a fog.
Sure enough, the fog lifted, and there they were—on the coast of America! They drew the boat up on the shore, and on the white sands knelt to thank God for their great success.
This country was the biggest place they had ever seen; they could tell this from the great mountain ranges in the distance. They walked up and down on the shore and the dunes looking inland, where they could see trees heavy with fruit and leaves turning a wonderful gold. Yes, this was indeed a promised land.
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