Forty days after starting in this new year they were much alarmed by a vast fish which seemed to be coming after them to devour them, but it was killed by another monster, breathing fire, which appeared against it from the East, and tore it into three pieces.

The next day they came to a large and grassy island, where they found the tail portion of the monster fish.  On this island they beached the ship, pitched the tent, and stayed three months, during which the sea was too stormy for travel.  They lived for the three months on part of the monster, the rest of which was devoured by beasts, but another portion of a fish was afterwards washed up, and they made a salt provision of it—­though as to Brendan himself, it is remarked that he was a consistent vegetarian, having never, since his ordination, eaten anything wherein had been the breath of life.  Three days after this, the sea being stiller, they set out again towards the North.

One day they saw an island in the distance, and Brendan told them that there were three companies, of children, of young men, and of elders, and that one of the three brethren last come was there to make his earthly pilgrimage.  They came to shore.  The island was so flat that it seemed level with the sea.  It had no trees nor anything that wind can shake.  It was vast, and was covered with something which the Latin text calls scaltae—­a word which I have failed to find in Ducange or in any other authority which I have been able to consult.  It is, however, evidently, from the context, some kind of ground fruit, and may perhaps be the strawberry or the Blaeberry—­although the Latin for these seems to be generally fragum and bacca myrtilii.  This fruit was white or purpureus—­wherein another difficulty arises as to the meaning of purpureus.  The individual berries were as big as large balls, and tasted like honey.  In this island were the three companies, who seemed to be moving and standing in a kind of sacred dance, two moving round while the one which had taken the farthest place stood still and sang, ’The Saints shall go from strength to strength:  the God of gods will appear in Zion.’  It is vexatious that here the question of colour again arises, as something very picturesque is evidently intended to be described.  The company of children were clad in pure and glistering white, but the Latin, which is verbally followed by the French, gives the colour of the young men’s garments as hyacinthine, and that of the elders’ as purple.  I have consulted all the authorities upon the question that I can.  The result is that it is disputed whether hyacinthine means red or blue or both, and whether the Latin purple was red or plum-coloured.  I hazard the conjecture that there is here an attempt to symbolize innocence, vigour, and ripeness, and that as the first colour is certainly white, the others may be red and what we call purple.