Celtic Christianity

Saint Brendan, Maeldun, Homer, Plato and the Voyage of Bran mac Febal

The Voyage of Saint Brendan: 14th century, Middle English, British Museum, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

The islands of sheep, and birds and monks in the Christian story of Saint Brendan once represented lives.

þe ueorþe day hy seie an ile · al by souþe an hei · Sein Brandan sight sore · þo he þis ile isey... – On the fourth day they saw an isle, looming above the horizon to the south. Saint Brendan sighed terribly when he saw this isle...

'It is an island where a monk lives who is sustained solely on the food that an otter catches for him,' said Quintin.

'So what is your theory?' asked Miranda.

‘That the islands in the Christian story of Saint Brendan once represented lives, in the original pagan story,’ said Quintin. 'When Bran goes on a voyage with all his crew, in the Irish tale upon which this story is based, for example, he sails past a number of weird islands and finally comes ashore on an Island of Women. Then after a year on this paradisaic isle they return to Ireland only to find that hundreds of years have elapsed since they set out – rather as Oisin does when he returns from the Land of Youth. When Maeldun goes on a similar voyage, he finds, just like Bran, an archipelago of hundreds of islands, islands of giants and islands of birds and horses and cattle and magic apples and eagles that are restored to youth in a lake. And then, when he arrives back in Ireland, his personality seems to have changed. He has forgiven those who have wronged him.’

'Not like Odysseus then,' said Miranda. 'He travelled around a weird sea, visiting lots of islands; one where his men were turned into pigs, ones with goddesses and many with giants, only to arrive back in Ithaca, his Greek home, and pretend to be a Cretan and then a beggar...'

'Someone else entirely.'

'Yes, but...'

'And the journey started with a violent, life-threatening, ship-wreaking storm, just like Maeldun’s.'

'Yes...'

'So then do you see what Celtic Christianity did to the voyage of Bran? It took his name, changed it to Brandan, which became Brendan, and sent him on a voyage to the Christian Paradise via a round of journeys that purposefully bore a resemblance to the old tales; from an island of sheep to the back of a whale, then to an island of birds and on to an island of humans, then back again to the island of birds and the whale and the humans and round and round again, visiting an island where a man is sustained by an otter, and then the ship comes eventually into a mist and sails on until the air clears and they find themselves on the shores of Paradise. As though in confirmation, really.'

'Confirmation of what?'

'That this is meant to be the afterlife. That if you reinstate the metaphor, if you focus on the bits of the story that were retained because it was a policy that the Christian Church should absorb and embrace pagan traditions wherever possible – hence wishing-wells dedicated to Christian saints – then the pagans must have believed that human beings could be reincarnated as animals, as Plato confirms, at the end of the Republic.'

'But Odysseus doesn't forgive the suitors,' objected Miranda. 'When he arrives back in Ithaca in disguise, he kills them all.'

'I think they all deserved to be killed, if they had been hanging around for ten years waiting for Penelope to make up her mind, as though time was standing still,' replied Quintin.

Story of Saint Brendan from: D'Evelyn, Charlotte, and Mill, Anna J., (Eds.), 1956. Reprinted 1967. The South English Legendary. Published for the Early English Text Society by Oxford University Press. The Middle English text of SAINT BRENDAN from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 145.

Story of Odysseus in: Shewring, Walter, with an introduction by Kirk, G. S., 1980, reprinted 2008. Homer: The Odyssey. Oxford University Press. Story of the Voyage of Maeldun and of Oisin's journey to Fairyland in: Rolleston, Thomas, 1911. Myths of the Celtic Race. The Gresham Publishing Company. Story of the Voyage of Bran in: Gregory, Lady A., 1904. Gods and Fighting Men: The Story of the Tuatha de Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland, Arranged and put into English by Lady Gregory. John Murray, London.

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