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




But in the seventh year they met with wholly new perils. They were
attacked, the legend says, first by a whale, then by a griffin, and then
by a race of cyclops, or one-eyed giants. Then they came to an island
where the whale which had attacked them was thrown on shore, so that they
could cut him to pieces; then another island which had great fruits, and
was called The Island of the Strong Man; and lastly one where the grapes
filled the air with perfume. After this they saw an island, all cinders
and flames, where the cyclops had their forges, and they sailed away in
the light of an immense fire. The next day they saw, looking northward, a
great and high mountain sending out flames at the top. Turning hastily
from this dreadful sight, they saw a little round island, at the top of
which a hermit dwelt, who gave them his benediction. Then they sailed
southward once more, and stopped at their usual places of resort for Holy
Week, Easter, and Whitsuntide.

It was on this trip that they had, so the legend says, that strange
interview with Judas Iscariot, out of which Matthew Arnold has made a
ballad. Sailing in the wintry northern seas at Christmas time, St. Brandan
saw an iceberg floating by, on which a human form rested motionless; and
when it moved at last, he saw by its resemblance to the painted pictures
he had seen that it must be Judas Iscariot, who had died five centuries
before. Then as the boat floated near the iceberg, Judas spoke and told
him his tale. After he had betrayed Jesus Christ, after he had died, and
had been consigned to the flames of hell,--which were believed in very
literally in those days,--an angel came to him on Christmas night and said
that he might go thence and cool himself for an hour. "Why this mercy?"
asked Judas Iscariot. Then the angel said to him, "Remember the leper in
Joppa," and poor Judas recalled how once when the hot wind, called the
sirocco, swept through the streets of Joppa, and he saw a naked leper by
the wayside, sitting in agony from the heat and the drifting sand, Judas
had thrown his cloak over him for a shelter and received his thanks. In
reward for this, the angel now told him, he was to have, once a year, an
hour's respite from his pain; he was allowed in that hour to fling himself
on an iceberg and cool his burning heat as he drifted through the northern
seas. Then St. Brandan bent his head in prayer; and when he looked up, the
hour was passed, and Judas had been hurried back into his torments.

It seems to have been only after seven years of this wandering that they
at last penetrated within the obscure fogs which surrounded the Isle of
the Saints, and came upon a shore which lay all bathed in sunny light. It
was a vast island, sprinkled with precious stones, and covered with ripe
fruits; they traversed it for forty days without arriving at the end,
though they reached a great river which flowed through the midst of it
from east to west. There an angel appeared to them, and told them that
they could go no farther, but could return to their own abode, carrying
from the island some of those fruits and precious stones which were
reserved to be distributed among the saints when all the world should be
brought to the true faith. In order to hasten that time, it appears that
St. Malo, the youngest of the sea-faring monks, had wished, in his zeal,
to baptize some one, and had therefore dug up a heathen giant who had
been, for some reason, buried on the blessed isle. Not only had he dug the
giant's body up, but St. Malo had brought him to life again sufficiently
for the purpose of baptism and instruction in the true faith; after which
he gave him the name of Mildus, and let him die once more and be reburied.
Then, facing homeward and sailing beyond the fog, they touched once more
at The Island of Delights, received the benediction of the abbot of the
monastery, and sailed for Ireland to tell their brethren of the wonders
they had seen.

He used to tell them especially to his nurse Ita, under whose care he had
been placed until his fifth year. His monastery at Clonfert grew, as has
been said, to include three thousand monks; and he spent his remaining
years in peace and sanctity. The supposed islands which he visited are
still believed by many to have formed a part of the American continent,
and he is still thought by some Irish scholars to have been the first to
discover this hemisphere, nearly a thousand years before Columbus,
although this view has not yet made much impression on historians. The
Paradise of Birds, in particular, has been placed by these scholars in
Mexico, and an Irish poet has written a long poem describing the delights
to be found there:--

"Oft, in the sunny mornings, have I seen
Bright yellow birds, of a rich lemon hue,
Meeting in crowds upon the branches green,
And sweetly singing all the morning through;
And others, with their heads grayish and dark,
Pressing their cinnamon cheeks to the old trees,
And striking on the hard, rough, shrivelled bark,
Like conscience on a bosom ill at ease.

"And diamond-birds chirping their single notes,
Now 'mid the trumpet-flower's deep blossoms seen,
Now floating brightly on with fiery throats--
Small winged emeralds of golden green;
And other larger birds with orange cheeks,
A many-color-painted, chattering crowd,
Prattling forever with their curved beaks,
And through the silent woods screaming aloud."



XIII

KIRWAN'S SEARCH FOR HY-BRASAIL


The boy Kirwan lay on one of the steep cliffs of the Island of Innismane--
one of the islands of Arran, formerly called Isles of the Saints. He was
looking across the Atlantic for a glimpse of Hy-Brasail. This was what
they called it; it was a mysterious island which Kirwan's grandfather had
seen, or thought he had seen--and Kirwan's father also;--indeed, there was
not one of the old people on the island who did not think he had seen it,
and the older they were, the oftener it had been seen by them, and the
larger it looked. But Kirwan had never seen it, and whenever he came to
the top of the highest cliff, where he often went bird-nesting, he climbed
the great mass of granite called The Gregory, and peered out into the
west, especially at sunset, in hopes that he would at least catch a
glimpse, some happy evening, of the cliffs and meadows of Hy-Brasail. But
as yet he had never espied them. All this was more than two hundred years
ago.

He naturally went up to The Gregory at this hour, because it was then
that he met the other boys, and caught puffins by being lowered over the
cliff. The agent of the island employed the boys, and paid them a sixpence
for every dozen birds, that he might sell the feathers. The boys had a
rope three hundred feet long, which could reach the bottom of the cliff.
One of them tied this rope around his waist, and then held it fast with
both hands, the rope being held above by four or five strong boys, who
lowered the cragman, or "clifter," as he was called, over the precipice.
Kirwan was thus lowered to the rocks near the sea, where the puffins bred;
and, loosening the rope, he prepared to spend the night in catching them.
He had a pole with a snare on the end, which he easily clapped on the
heads of the heavy and stupid birds; then tied each on a string as he
caught it, and so kept it to be hauled up in the morning. He took in this
way twenty or thirty score of the birds, besides quantities of their large
eggs, which were found in deep clefts in the rock; and these he carried
with him when his friends came in the morning to haul him up. It was a
good school of courage, for sometimes boys missed their footing and were
dashed to pieces. At other times he fished in his father's boat, or drove
calves for sale on the mainland, or cured salt after high tide in the
caverns, or collected kelp for the farmers. But he was always looking
forward to a time when he might get a glimpse of the island of Hy-Brasail,
and make his way to it.

One day when all the fleet of fishing-boats was out for the herring
fishery, and Kirwan among them, the fog came in closer and closer, and he
was shut apart from all others. His companion in the boat--or dory-mate,
as it would be called in New England--had gone to cut bait on board
another boat, but Kirwan could manage the boat well enough alone. Long he
toiled with his oars toward the west, where he fancied the rest of the
fleet to be; and sometimes he spread his little sprit-sail, steering with
an oar--a thing which was, in a heavy sea, almost as hard as rowing. At
last the fog lifted, and he found himself alone upon the ocean. He had
lost his bearings and could not tell the points of the compass. Presently
out of a heavy bank of fog which rose against the horizon he saw what
seemed land. It gave him new strength, and he worked hard to reach it; but
it was long since he had eaten, his head was dizzy, and he lay down on the
thwart of the boat, rather heedless of what might come. Growing weaker and
weaker, he did not clearly know what he was doing. Suddenly he started up,
for a voice hailed him from above his head. He saw above him the high
stern of a small vessel, and with the aid of a sailor he was helped on
board.

He found himself on the deck of a sloop of about seventy tons, John
Nisbet, master, with a crew of seven men. They had sailed from Killebegs
(County Donegal), in Ireland, for the coast of France, laden with butter,
tallow, and hides, and were now returning from France with French wines,
and were befogged as Kirwan had been. The boy was at once taken on board
and rated as a seaman; and the later adventures of the trip are here given
as he reported them on his return with the ship some months later.

The mist continued thicker and thicker for a time, and when it suddenly
furled itself away, they found themselves on an unknown coast, with the
wind driving them shoreward. There were men on board who were familiar
with the whole coast of Ireland and Scotland, but they remembered nothing
like this. Finding less than three fathoms of water, they came to anchor
and sent four men ashore to find where they were; these being James Ross
the carpenter and two sailors, with the boy Kirwan. They took swords and
pistols. Landing at the edge of a little wood, they walked for a mile
within a pleasant valley where cattle, horses, and sheep were feeding, and
then came in sight of a castle, small but strong, where they went to the
door and knocked. No one answered, and they walked on, up a green hill,
where there were multitudes of black rabbits; but when they had reached
the top and looked around they could see no inhabitants, nor any house; on
which they returned to the sloop and told their tale. After this the whole
ship's company went ashore, except one left in charge, and they wandered
about for hours, yet saw nothing more. As night came on they made a fire
at the base of a fallen oak, near the shore, and lay around it, talking,
and smoking the lately discovered weed, tobacco; when suddenly they heard
loud noises from the direction of the castle and then all over the island,
which frightened them so that they went on board the sloop and stayed all
night.

The next morning they saw a dignified, elderly gentleman with ten unarmed
followers coming down towards the shore. Hailing the sloop, the older
gentleman, speaking Gaelic, asked who and whence they were, and being
told, invited them ashore as his guests. They went on shore, well armed;
and he embraced them one by one, telling them that they were the happiest
sight that island had seen for hundreds of years; that it was called
Hy-Brasail or O-Brazile; that his ancestors had been princes of it, but
For many years it had been taken possession of by enchanters, who kept it
almost always invisible, so that no ship came there; and that for the same
reason he and his friends were rendered unable to answer the sailors, even
when they knocked at the door; and that the enchantment must remain until
a fire was kindled on the island by good Christians. This had been done
the night before, and the terrible noises which they had heard were from
the powers of darkness, which had now left the island forever.

And indeed when the sailors were led to the castle, they saw that the
chief tower had just been demolished by the powers of darkness, as they
retreated; but there were sitting within the halls men and women of
dignified appearance, who thanked them for the good service they had done.
Then they were taken over the island, which proved to be some sixty miles
long and thirty wide, abounding with horses, cattle, sheep, deer, rabbits,
and birds, but without any swine; it had also rich mines of silver and
gold, but few people, although there were ruins of old towns and cities.
The sailors, after being richly rewarded, were sent on board their vessel
and furnished with sailing directions to their port. On reaching home,
they showed to the minister of their town the pieces of gold and silver
that were given them at the island, these being of an ancient stamp,
somewhat rusty yet of pure gold; and there was at once an eager desire on
the part of certain of the townsmen to go with them. Within a week an
expedition was fitted out, containing several godly ministers, who wished
to visit and discover the inhabitants of the island; but through some
mishap of the seas this expedition was never heard of again.


Partly for this reason and partly because none of Captain Nesbit's crew
wished to return to the island, there came to be in time a feeling of
distrust about all this rediscovery of Hy-Brasail or O-Brazile. There were
not wanting those who held that the ancient gold pieces might have been
gained by piracy, such as was beginning to be known upon the Spanish main;
and as for the boy Kirwan, some of his playmates did not hesitate to
express the opinion that he had always been, as they phrased it, the
greatest liar that ever spoke. What is certain is that the island of
Brazil or Hy-Brasail had appeared on maps ever since 1367 as being near
the coast of Ireland; that many voyages were made from Bristol to find it,
a hundred years later; that it was mentioned about 1636 as often seen from
the shore; and that it appeared as Brazil Rock on the London Admiralty
Charts until after 1850. If many people tried to find it and failed, why
should not Kirwan have tried and succeeded? And as to his stretching his
story a little by throwing in a few enchanters and magic castles, there
was not a voyager of his period who was not tempted to do the same.



XIV

THE ISLE OF SATAN'S HAND


The prosperous farmer Conall Ua Corra in the province of Connaught had
everything to make him happy except that he and his wife had no children
to cheer their old age and inherit their estate. Conall had prayed for
children, and one day said in his impatience that he would rather have
them sent by Satan than not have them at all. A year or two later his wife
had three sons at a birth, and when these sons came to maturity, they were
so ridiculed by other young men, as being the sons of Satan, that they
said, "If such is really our parentage, we will do Satan's work." So they
collected around them a few villains and began plundering and destroying
the churches in the neighborhood and thus injuring half the church
buildings in the country. At last they resolved to visit also the church
of Clothar, to destroy it, and to kill if necessary their mother's father,
who was the leading layman of the parish. When they came to the church,
they found the old man on the green in front of it, distributing meat and
drink to his tenants and the people of the parish. Seeing this, they
postponed their plans until after dark and in the meantime went home with
their grandfather, to spend the night at his house. They went to rest, and
the eldest, Lochan, had a terrible dream in which he saw first the joys of
heaven and then the terrors of future punishment, and then he awoke in
dismay. Waking his brothers, he told them his dream, and that he now saw
that they had been serving evil masters and making war upon a good one.
Such was his bitterness of remorse that he converted them to his views,
and they agreed to go to their grandfather in the morning, renounce their
sinful ways and ask his pardon.

This they did, and he advised them to go to a celebrated saint, Finnen of
Clonard, and take him as their spiritual guide. Laying aside their armor
and weapons, they went to Clonard, where all the people, dreading them and
knowing their wickedness, fled for their lives, except the saint himself,
who came forward to meet them. With him the three brothers undertook the
most austere religious exercises, and after a year they came to St. Finnen
and asked his punishment for their former crimes. "You cannot," he said,
"restore to life those you have slain, but you can at least restore the
buildings you have devastated and ruined." So they went and repaired many
churches, after which they resolved to go on a pilgrimage upon the great
Atlantic Ocean. They built for themselves therefore a curragh or coracle,
covered with hides three deep. It was capable of carrying nine persons,
and they selected five out of the many who wished to join the party. There
were a bishop, a priest, a deacon, a musician, and the man who had
modelled the boat; and with these they pushed out to sea.

It had happened some years before that in a quarrel about a deer hunt,
the men of Ross had killed the king. It had been decided that, by way of
punishment, sixty couples of the people of Ross should be sent out to sea,
two and two, in small boats, to meet what fate they might upon the deeps.
They were watched that they might not land again, and for many years
nothing more had been heard from them. The most pious task which these
repenting pilgrims could undertake, it was thought, would be to seek these
banished people. They resolved to spread their sail and let Providence
direct their course. They went, therefore, northwest on the Atlantic,
where they visited several wonderful islands, on one of which there was a
great bird which related to them, the legend says, the whole history of
the world, and gave them a great leaf from a tree--the leaf being as large
as an ox-hide, and being preserved for many years in one of the churches
after their return. At the next island they heard sweet human voices, and
found that the sixty banished couples had established their homes there.

The pilgrims then went onward in their hidebound boat until they reached
the coast of Spain, and there they landed and dwelt for a time. The bishop
built a church, and the priest officiated in it, and the organist took
charge of the music. All prospered; yet the boat-builder and the three
brothers were never quite contented, for they had roamed the seas too
long; and they longed for a new enterprise for their idle valor. They
thought they had found this when one day they found on the sea-coast a
group of women tearing their hair, and when they asked the explanation,
"Señor," said an old woman, "our sons and our husbands have again fallen
into the hand of Satan." At this the three brothers were startled, for
they remembered well how they used, in youth, to rank themselves as
Satan's children. Asking farther, they learned that a shattered boat they
saw on the beach was one of a pair of boats which had been carried too far
out to sea, and had come near an islet which the sailors called _Isla de
la Man Satanaxio_, or The Island of Satan's Hand. It appeared that in
that region there was an islet so called, always surrounded by chilly
mists and water of a deadly cold; that no one had ever reached it, as it
constantly changed place; but that a demon hand sometimes uprose from it,
and plucked away men and even whole boats, which, when once grasped,
usually by night, were never seen again, but perished helplessly, victims
of Satan's Hand.

When the voyagers laughed at this legend, the priest of the village
showed them, on the early chart of Bianco, the name of "De la Man
Satanagio," and on that of Beccaria the name "Satanagio" alone, both these
being the titles of islands. Not alarmed at the name of Satan, as being
that of one whom they had supposed, in their days of darkness, to be their
patron, they pushed boldly out to sea and steered westward, a boat-load of
Spanish fishermen following in their wake. Passing island after island of
green and fertile look, they found themselves at last in what seemed a
less favored zone--as windy as the "roaring forties," and growing chillier
every hour. Fogs gathered quickly, so that they could scarcely see the
companion boat, and the Spanish fishermen called out to them, "Garda da la
Man do Satanaxio!" ("Look out for Satan's hand!")

As they cried, the fog became denser yet, and when it once parted for a
moment, something that lifted itself high above them, like a gigantic
hand, showed itself an instant, and then descended with a crushing grasp
upon the boat of the Spanish fishermen, breaking it to pieces, and
dragging some of the men below the water, while others, escaping, swam
through the ice-cold waves, and were with difficulty taken on board the
coracle; this being all the harder because the whole surface of the water
was boiling and seething furiously. Rowing away as they could from this
perilous neighborhood, they lay on their oars when the night came on, not
knowing which way to go. Gradually the fog cleared away, the sun rose
clearly at last, and wherever they looked on the deep they saw no traces
of any island, still less of the demon hand. But for the presence among
them of the fishermen they had picked up, there was nothing to show that
any casualty had happened.

That day they steered still farther to the west with some repining from
the crew, and at night the same fog gathered, the same deadly chill came
on. Finding themselves in shoal water, and apparently near some island,
they decided to anchor the boat; and as the man in the bow bent over to
clear away the anchor, something came down upon him with the same awful
force, and knocked him overboard. His body could not be recovered, and as
the wind came up, they drove before it until noon of the next day, seeing
nothing of any land and the ocean deepening again. By noon the fog
cleared, and they saw nothing, but cried with one voice that the boat
should be put about, and they should return to Spain. For two days they
rowed in peace over a summer sea; then came the fog again and they laid on
their oars that night. All around them dim islands seemed to float,
scarcely discernible in the fog; sometimes from the top of each a point
would show itself, as of a mighty hand, and they could hear an occasional
plash and roar, as if this hand came downwards. Once they heard a cry, as
if of sailors from another vessel. Then they strained their eyes to gaze
into the fog, and a whole island seemed to be turning itself upside down,
its peak coming down, while its base went uppermost, and the whole water
boiled for leagues around, as if both earth and sea were upheaved.

The sun rose upon this chaos of waters. No demon hand was anywhere
visible, nor any island, but a few icebergs were in sight, and the
frightened sailors rowed away and made sail for home. It was rare to see
icebergs so far south, and this naturally added to the general dismay.
Amid the superstition of the sailors, the tales grew and grew, and all the
terrors became mingled. But tradition says that there were some veteran
Spanish sailors along that coast, men who had sailed on longer voyages,
and that these persons actually laughed at the whole story of Satan's
Hand, saying that any one who had happened to see an iceberg topple over
would know all about it. It was more generally believed, however, that all
this was mere envy and jealousy; the daring fishermen remained heroes for
the rest of their days; and it was only within a century or two that the
island of Satanaxio disappeared from the charts.



XV

ANTILLIA, THE ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES


The young Spanish page, Luis de Vega, had been for some months at the
court of Don Rodrigo, king of Spain, when he heard the old knights
lamenting, as they came out of the palace at Toledo, over the king's last
and most daring whim. "He means," said one of them in a whisper, "to
penetrate the secret cave of the Gothic kings, that cave on which each
successive sovereign has put a padlock,"

"Till there are now twenty-seven of them," interrupted a still older
knight.

"And he means," said the first, frowning at the interruption, "to take
thence the treasures of his ancestors."

"Indeed, he must do it," said another, "else the son of his ancestors
will have no treasure left of his own."

"But there is a spell upon it," said the other. "For ages Spain has been
threatened with invasion, and it is the old tradition that the only
talisman which can prevent it is in this cave."

"Well," said the scoffer, "it is only by entering the cave that he can
possess the talisman."

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