A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic

T >> Thomas Wentworth Higginson >> Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic




The legends of St. Brandan, it will be observed, resemble so much the
tales of Sindbad the Sailor and others in the "Arabian Nights"--which have
also the island-whale, the singing birds, and other features--that it is
impossible to doubt that some features of tradition were held in common
with the Arabs of Spain.

In later years (the twelfth century), a geographer named Honoré d'Autun
declared, in his "Image of the World," that there was in the ocean a
certain island agreeable and fertile beyond all others, now unknown to
men, once discovered by chance and then lost again, and that this island
was the one which Brandan had visited. In several early maps, before the
time of Columbus, the Madeira Islands appear as "The Fortunate Islands of
St. Brandan," and on the famous globe of Martin Behaim, made in the very
year when Columbus sailed, there is a large island much farther west than
Madeira, and near the equator, with an inscription saying that in the year
565, St. Brandan arrived at this island and saw many wondrous things,
returning to his own land afterwards. Columbus heard this island mentioned
at Ferro, where men declared that they had seen it in the distance. Later,
the chart of Ortelius, in the sixteenth century, carried it to the
neighborhood of Ireland; then it was carried south again, and was supposed
all the time to change its place through enchantment, and when Emanuel of
Portugal, in 1519, renounced all claim to it, he described it as "The
Hidden Island." In 1570 a Portuguese expedition was sent which claimed
actually to have touched the mysterious island, indeed to have found there
the vast impression of a human foot--doubtless of the baptized giant
Mildus--and also a cross nailed to a tree, and three stones laid in a
triangle for cooking food. Departing hastily from the island, they left
two sailors behind, but could never find the place again.

Again and again expeditions were sent out in search of St. Brandan's
island, usually from the Canaries--one in 1604 by Acosta, one in 1721 by
Dominguez; and several sketches of the island, as seen from a distance,
were published in 1759 by a Franciscan priest in the Canary Islands, named
Viere y Clarijo, including one made by himself on May 3, 1759, about 6
A.M., in presence of more than forty witnesses. All these sketches depict
the island as having its chief length from north to south, and formed of
two unequal hills, the highest of these being at the north, they having
between them a depression covered with trees. The fact that this resembles
the general form of Palma, one of the Canary Islands, has led to the
belief that it may have been an ocean mirage, reproducing the image of
that island, just as the legends themselves reproduce, here and there, the
traditions of the "Arabian Nights."

In a map drawn by the Florentine physician, Toscanelli, which was sent by
him to Columbus in 1474 to give his impression of the Asiatic coast,--
lying, as he supposed, across the Atlantic,--there appears the island of
St. Brandan. It is as large as all the Azores or Canary Islands or Cape de
Verde Islands put together; its southern tip just touches the equator, and
it lies about half-way between the Cape de Verde Islands and Zipangu or
Japan, which was then believed to lie on the other side of the Atlantic.
Mr. Winsor also tells us that the apparition of this island "sometimes
came to sailors' eyes" as late as the last century (Winsor's "Columbus,"
112).

He also gives a reproduction of Toscanelli's map now lost, as far as can
be inferred from descriptions (Winsor, p. 110).

The following is Matthew Arnold's poem:--

SAINT BRANDAN

Saint Brandan sails the northern main;
The brotherhoods of saints are glad.
He greets them once, he sails again;
So late!--such storms!--the Saint is mad!

He heard, across the howling seas,
Chime convent-bells on wintry nights;
He saw, on spray-swept Hebrides,
Twinkle the monastery lights;

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd--
And now no bells, no convents more!
The hurtling Polar lights are near'd,
The sea without a human shore.

At last--(it was the Christmas-night;
Stars shone after a day of storm)--
He sees float past an iceberg white,
And on it--Christ!--a living form.

That furtive mien, that scowling eye,
Of hair that red and tufted fell--
It is--oh, where shall Brandan fly?--
The traitor Judas, out of hell!

Palsied with terror, Brandan sate;
The moon was bright, the iceberg near.
He hears a voice sigh humbly: "Wait!
By high permission I am here.

"One moment wait, thou holy man!
On earth my crime, my death, they knew;
My name is under all men's ban--
Ah, tell them of my respite, too!

"Tell them, one blessed Christmas-night--
(It was the first after I came,
Breathing self-murder, frenzy, spite,
To rue my guilt in endless flame)--

"I felt, as I in torment lay
'Mid the souls plagued by heavenly power,
An angel touch my arm and say:
_Go hence, and cool thyself an hour!_

"'Ah, whence this mercy, Lord?' I said;
_The Leper recollect_, said he,
_Who ask'd the passers-by for aid,_
_In Joppa, and thy charity._

"Then I remember'd how I went,
In Joppa, through the public street,
One morn when the sirocco spent
Its storm of dust with burning heat;

"And in the street a leper sate,
Shivering with fever, naked, old;
Sand raked his sores from heel to pate,
The hot wind fever'd him five-fold.

"He gazed upon me as I pass'd,
And murmur'd: _Help me, or I die!_--
To the poor wretch my cloak I cast,
Saw him look eased, and hurried by.

"Oh, Brandan, think what grace divine,
What blessing must full goodness shower,
When fragment of it small, like mine,
Hath such inestimable power!

"Well-fed, well-clothed, well-friended, I
Did that chance act of good, that one!
Then went my way to kill and lie--
Forgot my good as soon as done.

"That germ of kindness, in the womb
Of mercy caught, did not expire;
Outlives my guilt, outlives my doom,
And friends me in this pit of fire.

"Once every year, when carols wake
On earth the Christmas-night's repose,
Arising from the sinner's lake,
I journey to these healing snows.

"I stanch with ice my burning breast,
With silence balm my whirling brain;
O Brandan! to this hour of rest
That Joppan leper's ease was pain."

Tears started to Saint Brandan's eyes;
He bow'd his head, he breathed a prayer--
Then look'd, and lo, the frosty skies!
The iceberg, and no Judas there!

The island of St. Brandan's was sometimes supposed to lie in the Northern
Atlantic, sometimes farther south. It often appears as the Fortunate Isle
or Islands, "Insulae Fortunatae" or "Beatae."

On some early maps (1306 to 1471) there is an inlet on the western coast
of Ireland called "Lacus Fortunatus," which is filled with Fortunate
Islands to the number of 358 (Humboldt, "Examen," II. p. 159), and in one
map of 1471 both these and the supposed St. Brandan's group appear in
different parts of the ocean under the same name. When the Canary Islands
were discovered, they were supposed to be identical with St. Brandan's,
but the latter was afterwards supposed to lie southeast of them. After the
discovery of the Azores various expeditions were sent to search for St.
Brandan's until about 1721. It was last reported as seen in 1759. A full
bibliography will be found in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History,"
I. p. 48, and also in Humboldt's "Examen," II. p. 163, and early maps
containing St. Brandan's will be found in Winsor (I. pp. 54, 58). The
first of these is Pizigani's (1387), containing "Ysolae dictae
Fortunatae," and the other that of Ortelius (1587), containing "S.
Brandain."


XIII. HY-BRASAIL

"The people of Aran, with characteristic enthusiasm, fancy, that at
certain periods, they see Hy-Brasail, elevated far to the west in their
watery horizon. This has been the universal tradition of the ancient
Irish, who supposed that a great part of Ireland had been swallowed by the
sea, and that the sunken part often rose and was seen hanging in the
horizon: such was the popular notion. The Hy-Brasail of the Irish is
evidently a part of the Atlantis of Plato; who, in his 'Timaeus,' says
that that island was totally swallowed up by a prodigious earthquake."
(O'Flaherty's "Discourse on the History and Antiquities of the Southern
Islands of Aran, lying off the West Coast of Ireland," 1824, p. 139.)

The name appeared first (1351) on the chart called the Medicean
Portulana, applied to an island off the Azores. In Pizigani's map (1367)
there appear three islands of this name, two off the Azores and one off
Ireland. From this time the name appears constantly in maps, and in 1480 a
man named John Jay went out to discover the island on July 14, and
returned unsuccessful on September 18. He called it Barsyle or Brasylle;
and Pedro d'Ayalo, the Spanish Ambassador, says that such voyages were
made for seven years "according to the fancies of the Genoese, meaning
Sebastian Cabot." Humboldt thinks that the wood called Brazil-wood was
supposed to have come from it, as it was known before the South American
Brazil was discovered.

A manuscript history of Ireland, written about 1636, in the Library of
the Royal Irish Academy, says that Hy-Brasail was discovered by a Captain
Rich, who saw its harbor but could never reach it. It is mentioned by
Jeremy Taylor ("Dissuasives from Popery," 1667), and the present narrative
is founded partly on an imaginary one, printed in a pamphlet in London,
1675, and reprinted in Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy" (1831), II. p. 369.
The French Geographer Royal, M. Tassin, thinks that the island may have
been identical with Porcupine Bank, once above water. In Jeffrey's atlas
(1776) it appears as "the imaginary island of O'Brasil." "Brazil Rock"
appears on a chart of Purdy, 1834 (Humboldt's "Examen Critique," II. p.
163). Two rocks always associated with it, Mayda and Green Rock, appear on
an atlas issued in 1866. See bibliography in Winsor's "Narrative and
Critical History," I. p. 49, where there are a number of maps depicting it
(I. pp. 54-57). The name of the island is derived by Celtic scholars from
_breas_, large, and _i_, island; or, according to O'Brien's
"Irish Dictionary," its other form of O'Brasile means a large imaginary
island (Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," I. p. 369). There are several
families named Brazil in County Waterford, Ireland ("Transactions of the
Ossianic Society, Dublin," 1854, I. p. 81). The following poem about the
island, by Gerald Griffin, will be found in Sparling's "Irish Minstrelsy"
(1888), p. 427:--

HY-BRASAIL, THE ISLE OF THE BLEST

On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell
A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;
Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest.
From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim,
The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim;
The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay,
And it looked like an Eden away, far away!

A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale,
In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail;
From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west,
For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.
He heard not the voices that called from the shore--
He heard not the rising wind's menacing roar;
Home, kindred, and safety he left on that day,
And he sped to Hy-Brasail, away, far away!

Morn rose on the deep, and that shadowy isle,
O'er the faint rim of distance, reflected its smile;
Noon burned on the wave, and that shadowy shore
Seemed lovelily distant, and faint as before;
Lone evening came down on the wanderer's track,
And to Ara again he looked timidly back;
O far on the verge of the ocean it lay,
Yet the isle of the blest was away, far away!

Rash dreamer, return! O ye winds of the main,
Bear him back to his own peaceful Ara again,
Rash fool! for a vision of fanciful bliss,
To barter thy calm life of labor and peace.
The warning of reason was spoken in vain;
He never revisited Ara again!
Night fell on the deep, amidst tempest and spray,
And he died on the waters, away, far away!


XIV. ISLAND OF SATAN'S HAND

The early part of this narrative is founded on Professor O'Curry's
Lectures on the manuscript materials of Irish history; it being another of
those "Imrama" or narratives of ocean expeditions to which the tale of St.
Brandan belongs. The original narrative lands the three brothers
ultimately in Spain, and it is a curious fact that most of what we know of
the island of Satanaxio or Satanajio--which remained so long on the maps--
is taken from an Italian narrative of three other brothers, cited by
Formaleoni, "Il Pellegrinaccio di tre giovanni," by Christoforo Armeno
(Gaffarel, "Les Iles Fantastiques," p. 91). The coincidence is so peculiar
that it offered an irresistible temptation to link the two trios of
brothers into one narrative and let the original voyagers do the work of
exploration. The explanation given by Gaffarel to the tale is the same
that I have suggested as possible. He says in "Iles Fantastiques de
l'Atlantaque" (p. 12), "S'il nous était permis d'aventurer une hypothèse,
nous croirions voluntiers que les navigateurs de l'époque rencontrèrent,
en s'aventurant dans l'Atlantique, quelques-uns de ces gigantesques
icebergs, ou montagnes de glace, arrachés aux banquises du pôle nord, et
entraînés au sud par les courants, dont la rencontre, assez fréquente,
est, même aujourd'hui, tellement redoutée par les capitaines. Ces
icebergs, quand ils se heurtent contre un navire, le coulent à pic; et
comme ils arrivent à l'improviste, escortés par d'épais brouillards, ils
paraissent réellement sortir du sein des flots, comme sortait la main de
Satan, pour précipiter au fond de l'abîme matelots et navires." As to the
name itself there has been much discussion. On the map of Bianco (1436)--
reproduced in Winsor, I. p. 54--the name "Ya de Lamansatanaxio" distinctly
appears, and this was translated by both Formaleoni and Humboldt as
meaning "the Island of the Hand of Satan." D'Avezac was the first to
suggest that the reference was to two separate islands, the one named "De
la Man" or "Danman," and the other "Satanaxio." He further suggests--
followed by Gaffarel--that the name of the island may originally have been
San Atanagio, thus making its baptism a tribute to St. Athanasius instead
of to Satan. This would certainly have been a curious transformation, and
almost as unexpected in its way as the original conversion of the sinful
brothers from outlaws to missionaries.


XV. ANTILLIA

The name Antillia appears first, but not very clearly, on the Pizigani
map of 1367; then clearly on a map of 1424, preserved at Weimar, on that
of Bianco in 1436, and on the globe of Beheim in 1492, which adds in an
inscription the story of the Seven Bishops. On some maps of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries there appears near it a smaller island under the
name of Sette Cidade, or Sete Ciudades, which is properly another name for
the same island. Toscanelli, in his famous letter to Columbus, recommended
Antillia as a good way-station for his voyage to India. The island is said
by tradition to have been re-discovered by a Portuguese sailor in 1447.
Tradition says that this sailor went hastily to the court of Portugal to
announce the discovery, but was blamed for not having remained longer, and
so fled. It was supposed to be "a large, rectangular island extending from
north to south, lying in the mid Atlantic about lat. 35 N." An ample
bibliography will be found in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History,"
I. p. 48, with maps containing Antillia, I. pp. 54 (Pizigani's), 56, 58.

After the discovery of America, Peter Martyr states (in 1493) that
Hispaniola and the adjacent islands were "Antillae insulae," meaning that
they were identical with the group surrounding the fabled Antillia
(Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History," I. p. 49); and Schöner, in the
dedicatory letter of his globe of 1523, says that the king of Castile,
through Columbus, has discovered _Antiglias Hispaniam Cubam quoque_.
It was thus that the name Antilles came to be applied to the islands
discovered by Columbus; just as the name Brazil was transferred from an
imaginary island to the new continent, and the name Seven Cities was
applied to the pueblos of New Mexico by those who discovered them. (See J.
H. Simpson, "Coronado's March in Search of the Seven Cities of Cibola,"
Smithsonian Institution, 1869, pp. 209-340.)

The sailor who re-discovered them said that the chief desire of the
people was to know whether the Moors still held Spain (Gaffarel, "Iles
Fantastiques," p. 3). In a copy of "Ptolemy" addressed to Pope Urban VI.
about 1380, before the alleged visit of the Portuguese, it was stated of
the people at Antillia that they lived in a Christian manner, and were
most prosperous, "Hie populus christianissime vivit, omnibus divitiis
seculi hujus plenus" (D'Avezac, "Nouvelles Annales des voyages," 1845, II.
p. 55).

It was afterwards held by some that the island of Antillia was identical
with St. Michael in the Azores, where a certain cluster of stone huts
still bears the name of Seven Cities, and the same name is associated with
a small lake by which they stand. (Humboldt's "Examen Critique," Paris,
1837, II. p. 203; Gaffarel, "Iles Fantastiques," p. 3.)


XVI. HARALD THE VIKING

The tales of the Norse explorations of America are now accessible in many
forms, the most convenient of these being in the edition of E. L. Slafter,
published by the Prince Society. As to the habits of the Vikings, the most
accessible authorities are "The Age of the Vikings," by Du Chaillu, and
"The Sea Kings of Norway," by Laing. The writings of the late Professor E.
N. Horsford are well known, but his opinions are not yet generally
accepted by students. His last work, "Leif's House in Vineland," with his
daughter's supplementary essay on "Graves of the Northmen," is probably
the most interesting of the series (Boston, 1893). In Longfellow's "Saga
of King Olaf" (II.), included in "Tales of a Wayside Inn," there is a
description of the athletic sports practised by the Vikings, which are
moreover described with the greatest minuteness by Du Chaillu.


XVII. NORUMBEGA

The narrative of Champlain's effort to find Norumbega in 1632 may be
found in Otis's "Voyages of Champlain" (II. p. 38), and there is another
version in the _Magazine of American History_ (I. p. 321). The whole
legend of the city is well analyzed in the same magazine (I. p. 14) by Dr.
De Costa under the title "The Lost City of New England." In another volume
he recurs to the subject (IX. p. 168), and gives (IX. p. 200) a printed
copy of David Ingram's narrative, from the original in the Bodleian
Library. He also discusses the subject in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical
History" (IV. p. 77, etc.), where he points out that "the insular
character of the Norumbega region is not purely imaginary, but is based on
the fact that the Penobscot region affords a continued watercourse to the
St. Lawrence, which was travelled by the Maine Indians." Ramusio's map of
1559 represents "Nurumbega" as a large island, well defined (Winsor, IV.
p. 91); and so does that of Ruscelli (Winsor, IV. p. 92), the latter
spelling it "Nurumberg." Some geographers supposed it to extend as far as
Florida. The name was also given to a river (probably the Penobscot) and
to a cape. The following is Longfellow's poem on the voyage of Sir
Humphrey Gilbert:--

SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT

Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and fast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.

His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;

On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.

His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.

Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.

Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.

He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"

In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.

The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.

They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.

Southward through day and dark,
They drift in close embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.

Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.


XVIII. GUARDIANS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE

For authorities for this tale see "Voyages of Samuel de Champlain,"
translated by Charles Pomeroy Otis, Ph.D., with memoir by the Rev. E. F.
Slafter, A.M., Boston, 1880 (I. pp. 116, 289, II. p. 52). The incident of
the disguised Indians occurred, however, to the earlier explorer, Jacques
Cartier. (See my "Larger History of the United States," p. 112.)


XIX. ISLAND OF DEMONS

The tale of the Isle of Demons is founded on a story told first by
Marguerite of Navarre in her "Heptameron" (LXVII. Nouvelle), and then
with much variation and amplification by the very untrustworthy traveller
Thevet in his "Cosmographie" (1571), Livre XXIII. c. vi. The only copy of
the latter work known to me is in the Carter-Brown Library at Providence,
R.I., and the passage has been transcribed for me through the kindness of
A. E. Winship, Esq., librarian, who has also sent me a photograph of a
woodcut representing the lonely woman shooting at a bear. A briefer
abstract of the story is in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History" (IV.
p. 66, note), but it states, perhaps erroneously, that Thevet knew
Marguerite only through the Princess of Navarre, whereas that author
claims--though his claim is never worth much--that he had the story from
the poor woman herself, "_La pauvre femme estant arriuvee en France ...
et venue en la ville de Nautron, pays de Perigort lors que i'y estois, me
feit le discours de toutes ses fortunes passées_."

The Island of Demons appears on many old maps which may be found engraved
in Winsor, IV. pp. 91, 92, 93, 100, 373, etc.; also as "Isla de demonios"
in Sebastian Cabot's map (1544) reprinted in Dr. S. E. Dawson's valuable
"Voyages of the Cabots," in the Transactions of the Royal Society of
Canada for 1897. He also gives Ruysch's map (1508), in which a cluster of
islands appears in the same place, marked "Insulae daemonum." Harrisse,
in his "Notes sur la Nouvelle France" (p. 278), describes the three
sufferers as having been abandoned by Roberval _à trente six lieues des
côtes de Canada, dans une isle deserte qui fut depuis désignée sous le nom
de l'Isle de la Demoiselle, pres de l'embouchure de la Rivière St. Paul ou
des Saumons_. I have not, however, been able to identify this island.
Parkman also says ("Pioneers of France," p. 205) that Roberval's pilot, in
his _routier_, or logbook, speaks often of "Les Isles de la
Demoiselle," evidently referring to Marguerite. The brief account by the
Princess of Navarre follows:--

LXVII NOUVELLE

Une pauvre femme, pour sauver la vie de son mary, hasarda la sienne, et
ne l'abandonna jusqu'à la mort.

C'est que faisant le diet Robertval un voiage sur la mer, duquel il
estoit chef par le commandement du Roy son maistre, en l'isle de Canadas;
auquel lieu avoit délibéré, si l'air du païs euste esté commode, de
demourer et faire villes et chasteaulx; en quoy il fit tel commencement,
que chacun peut sçavoir. Et, pour habituer le pays de Chrestiens, mena
avecq luy de toutes sortes d'artisans, entre lesquelz y avoit un homme,
qui fut si malheureux, qu'il trahit son maistre et le mist en dangier
d'estre prins des gens du pays. Mais Dieu voulut que son entreprinse fut
si tost congneue, qu'elle ne peut nuyre au cappitaine Robertval, lequel
feit prendre ce meschant traistre, le voulant pugnir comme il l'avoit
mérité; ce qui eust esté faict, sans sa femme qui avoit suivy son mary par
les périlz de la mer; et ne le voulut abandonner à la mort, mais avecq
force larmes feit tant, avecq le cappitaine et toute la compaignye, que,
tant pour la pitié d'icelle que pour le service qu'elle leur avoit faict,
luy accorda sa requeste qui fut telle, que le mary et la femme furent
laissez en une petite isle, sur la mer, où il n'habitoit que bestes
saulvaiges; et leur fut permis de porter avecq eulx ce dont ilz avoient
nécessité. Les pauvres gens, se trouvans tous seulz en la compaignye des
bestes saulvaiges et cruelles, n'eurent recours que à Dieu seul, qui avoit
esté toujours le ferme espoir de ceste pauvre femme. Et, comme celle qui
avoit toute consolation en Dieu, porta pour sa saulve garde, nourriture et
consolation le Nouveau Testament, lequel elle lisoit incessamment. Et, au
demourant, avecq son mary, mettoit peine d'accoustrer un petit logis le
mieulx qui'l leur estoit possible; et, quand les lyons et aultres bestes
en aprochoient pour les dévorer, le mary avecq sa harquebuze, et elle,
avecq les pierres, se défendoient si bien, que, non suellement les bestes
ne les osoient approcher, mais bien souvent en tuèrent de très-bonnes à
manger; ainsy, avecq telles chairs et les herbes du païs, vesquirent
quelque temps, quand le pain leur fut failly. A la longue, le mary ne peut
porter telle nourriture; et, à cause des eaues qu'ilz buvoient, devint si
enflé, que en peu de temps il mourut, n'aiant service ne consolation que
sa femme, laquelle le servoit de médecin et de confesseur; en sorte qu'il
passa joieusement de ce désert en la céleste patrie. Et la pauvre femme,
demourée seulle, l'enterra le plus profond en terre qu'il fut possible; si
est-ce que les bestes en eurent incontinent le sentyment, qui vindrent
pour manger la charogne. Mais la pauvre femme, en sa petite
maisonnette, de coups de harquebuze défendoit que la chair de son mary
n'eust tel sépulchre. Ainsy vivant, quant au corps, de vie bestiale, et
quant à l'esperit, de vie angélicque, passoit son temps en lectures,
contemplations, prières et oraisons ayant un esperit joieux et content,
dedans un corps emmaigry et demy mort. Mais Celluy qui n'abandonne jamais
les siens, et qui, au désespoir des autres, monstre sa puissance, ne
permist que la vertu qu'il avoit myse en ceste femme fust ignorée des
hommes, mais voulut qu'elle fust congneue à sa gloire; et fiet que, au
bout de quelque temps, un des navires de ceste armée passant devant ceste
isle, les gens qui estoient dedans advisèrent, quelque fumée qui leur feit
souvenir de ceulx qui y avoient esté laissez, et délibérèrent d'aller
veoir ce que Dieu en avoit faict. La pauvre femme, voiant approcher el
navire, se tira au bort de la mer, auquel lieu la trouvèrent à leur
arrivée. Et, après en avoir rendu louange à Dieu, les mena en sa pauvre
maisonnette, et leur monstra de quoy elle vivoit durant sa demeure; ce que
leur eust esté incroiable, sans la congnoissance qu'ilz avoient que Dieu
est puissant de nourrir en un désert ses serviteurs, comme au plus grandz
festins du monde. Et, ne pouvant demeurer en tel lieu, emmenèrent la
pauvre femme avecq eulx droict à la Rochelle, où, après un navigage, ilz
arrivèrent. Et quand ilz eurent faict entendre aux habitans la fidélité et
persévérance de ceste femme, elle fut receue à grand honneur de toutes les
Dames, qui voluntiers luy baillèrent leurs filles pour aprendre à lire et
à escripre. Et, à cest honneste mestier-là, gaigna le surplus de sa vie,
n'aiant autre désîr que d'exhorter un chaucun à l'amour et confiance de
Nostre Seigneur, se proposant pour exemple la grande miséricorde dont il
avoit usé envers elle.

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