records of hi s reign. Recent historiography has done better by vessel," as described in the Navigatio, " ribbed and sided with Arthur, however, recogni zing the reality of abundant overlap- wood but ... covered with oak-tanned ox-hides and caulked ping legends (which thri ved and lived on in much of Europe with ox-tallow," a precise description of the curraghs still as we ll as the British Isles), and the wide ly recorded fact that rowed or paddled in Ireland and Wales-latterly with tarred the Germanic invaders were decisively defeated around 5 l 5AD, canvas covering rather than the traditional tallowed ox-hide. after which some Germanic tribes returned to the main land. The adventurous Tim Severin insisted on ox-hide and tallow Gradually a pretty clear pictu re of who Arthur was, what he for his curragh St. Brendan, which he sailed from Ireland to did and how he did it, has emerged. North America not too Jong ago, demonstrating that the Arthur's victory resulted in an enforced pause of about a "Promised Land" Brendan came upon could have been in the generation in the Germanic conquest of Britain, whereas the Americas. So it could, but Morison , finding no confirming evidence European provinces were overru n as soon as the Roman legions left. This prolonged "pause" seems to have had an ameliorating for this, believes that Brendan sailed to the Faroes and effect on relations between Celt and German, setting a pattern Iceland, and possibly the Azores, but no further westward of compromise and accommodation, which becomes an under- than that. The Gulf Stream would seem to make the Azores, lying theme of future British history. The Germanic conquest far to the south, more difficult to reach in a small sailing craft was thoroughgoing, however. Little of the native Celtic than Greenland or Labrador, which can be reached by precarilanguage survives in modern English, which is basically a ous long-distance island-hopping on a far northern route, Germanic language. But British Christianity, a legacy of the avoiding head winds and current. The Navigatio's account of ice-filled seas and fogbound skies, in a climate in which such Roman Empire, survived-and so did the legend of Arthur. El sewhere in the British Isles, in the "Celtic fringe" coun- a hardy northern fruit as an apple is greeted with rapture, certainly gives a northerly feel tries-W ales, Scotland and " . . . the Gokstad ship sits low in the water; Ireland-Christianity and the to the voyage. But ifBrendan " book learning" of the Rodid reach America, then his she is double-ended; she is built in the same return via the Gulf Stream man Empire survived. In Ireclinker fa shion; and the same style lashings are land particularly these vital in the latitudes of prevailing used to secure the planking .... But she is a roots put forth new growth in west winds makes perfect sailing ship and no longer a rowing boat." a remarkable flo wering. Unsense. One can picture the conquered by Romans and abstemious monks (their Germans, the Irish kings sup ported monasteries and other fasting is often mentioned) surviving what would be a fairly centers of Christian literacy and learn ing, and actually pro- swift passage, even in theirtiny vessel with the limited provisions vided scholars fo r Charlemagne's court when in 800AD that she could carry. he ir of the French kings set up a new Holy Roman Empire The important thing about the voyage, however, is not the based in France, Germany and Italy. technicalities but the reason for making it. Clearly it was to Saint Brendan's Voyage explore the wonders of God's creation in the world. Brendan As Arthur was winning his battles for the brief revival of undertook the voyage toward the end of a very full life, aged Romano-Celtic rule in Britain in the 500s AD, the Irish monk 70-plus. If it is true that the Greek voyager Odysseus set sai l later canonized as St. Brendan set fort h with fo urteen com- to the westward at the end of his life, then Brendan would not panions on a bold voyage into the broad Atlantic, a voyage have been the first to cap a life of achievement with the great recorded with many fa ntastic later embe lli shments in a book adventure of the search for a land where there is peace and enjoying enormous popul ari ty in the Midd le Ages, the plenty and men find rest and undying life. To exp lain the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. power of this quest, Morison goes back to the Greek It is notable that among many wonders, ranging from a whale Hesiod, writing in the 700s BC, to cite his description of the on whose back Brendan and his companions camped (the whale, Islands of the Blest, found at the ends of the earth, "bounded a friendly beast, laterreturned the pot they'd left behind after their by deep-swirling Ocean," where men "live untouched by toi l cookout on his back), to hosts of birds who sang choruses to the or sorrow." As Morison notes, these "Insulae Fortunatae, or hymns of the holy men, they encountered other holy men living Happy Isles, which are also called the Hesperides, the Elysian among the islands they came upon-suggesting that Brendan' s Fields, and other names in every European vernacu lar" exvoyage was not unique, but one of a series carrying religious erted a deep hold on the European imagination. They fitted seekers to remote Atlantic outposts. And indeed, other accounts readily into the medieval Christian picture of the universe. of deep-sea voyages survive in early Irish literature. And Hesiod, who presumably knew of the Atlantic from the 'There is something very special about these northern Phoenician voyagers of his day (from whom he also got the voyages," says Samue l Eliot Morison, the great historian of alphabet he wrote in) located his blessed isles in "deep-swirling Atlantic exploration, in the preface to his European Discov- Ocean," by which he meant the seemingly boundless Atlantic. ery of America; the Northern Voyages. Properly averse to The Norse Stretch Their Wings overblown cl aims and fa ntasy masq uerading as fact, Morison In the mid-700s, two centuries after Brendan sailed, a formiaccepts Brendan 's voyage as hi storic fact: "Brendan was a dable force was loosed upon the Atlantic world as the Norse real person, and in my opinion hi s Navigatio is based on a real finally developed a remarkably swift, seaworthy sailing vesvoyage or voyages, enhanced by Celtic imagination." He adds sel from the rowing galleys they had used for war and that " whale islands and talking birds are stock stories of commerce along their sea-penetrated coast. In these new, earlier Irish im rama"-the imram being a traditional Irish fast-traveling and far-ranging vessels, which we call Viking ships, after the Norse word for raider, they burst upon the Irish voyage story. The ship for Brendan's voyagi ng was "a very tight little settlers in the Farnes and Iceland. They sacked the English 14
SEA HISTORY 75, AUTUMN 1995