It is not very surprising that St. Brendan’s legend, with such qualities in prose and verse, made itself at home in many lands and languages, and became for centuries a widespread popular favorite and matter of general belief, also influencing the most permanent literature of a high contemplative cast, which we might suppose to be out of touch with it altogether.  Certain of its more unusual incidents are found even in Arab writings of romance founded on fact, as in Edrisi’s narrative of the Magrurin explorers of Lisbon and the adventures of Sinbad related in the Arabian Nights; but perhaps here we have a case of reciprocal borrowing such as may well occur when ships’ companies of different nations meet.

The most conspicuous, insistent, and repeated feature of all these Imrama is a belief in Atlantic islands fair enough or wonderful enough to tempt the shore dwellers of Ireland far away and hold them spell-bound for years.  It is easy to ascribe these pictures to sunset on the ocean, or the wonders of mirage; but all the time, within long sailing distance, there actually were islands of delightful climate and exceeding beauty.  These had been occasionally reached from the Mediterranean ever since early Carthaginian times, as classical authors seem to tell us; why not also from Ireland, perhaps not quite so distant?  It is undoubted that the Canary Islands were never really altogether forgotten, and the same is probably true of the Madeiras and all three groups of Azores, though the knowledge that lingered in Ireland was a distorted glimmering tradition of old voyages, occasionally inciting to new ventures in the same field.

Some have supposed, though without sufficient evidence, that Saint Brendan even made his way to America, and parts of that shore line in several different latitudes have been selected as the scene of the exploit.  His first entry into serious geography is in the fine maps of Dulcert, 1339, and the Pizigani, 1367, both of which plainly label Madeira, Porto Santo, and Las Desertas—­“The Fortunate Islands of St. Brandan.”  That there may be no possibility of misunderstanding, the Pizigani brothers present a full-length portrait of the holy navigator himself bending over these islands with hands of benediction.  The inscription, though not the picture, was common, thus applied, on the maps of the next century or two, and no other interpretation of his voyage found any place until a later time.

Of course the fourteenth century was a long way from the sixth, when the voyage was supposed to have been made, and we cannot take so late a verdict as convincing proof of any fact.  But it at least exhibits the current interpretation of the written narrative among geographers and mariners, the people best able to judge; and here the interval was much less.  The story itself seems to corroborate them in a general way, if read naturally.  One would say that it tells of a voyage to the Canaries, of which one is unmistakably “the island under Mount Atlas”, and that this was undertaken by way of the Azores and Madeira, with inevitable experience of great beauty in some islands and volcanic terrors in others.  Madeira may well have been pitched upon by the interpreters as the suitable scene of a particularly long tarrying by the way.  Of course magic filled out all gaps of real knowledge, and wonders grew with each new rewriting.