an see Columba and his disciples journeying on foot, as poor and
as barely provided as were Christ and His disciples, with neither
silver nor gold nor brass in their purses, and over a wilder country
and among a wilder people."

[Illustration: IRELAND AND ST. BRANDON'S ISLE. From the Catalan map,
1375.]

These pilgrims tramped to and fro clad in simple tunics over a monkish
dress of undyed wool, bound round the waist by a strong cord, all their
worldly goods on their backs and a staff in their hands. The hermit
instinct was growing, and men were sailing away to lonely islands where
God might be better served apart from the haunts of men. Perhaps it
was this instinct that inspired St. Brandon to sail away across the
trackless ocean in search of the Island of Saints reported in the
western seas. His voyage suggests the old expedition of Ulysses. A
good deal of it is mythical, some is added at a later date, but it
is interesting as being an attempt to cross the wide Atlantic Ocean
across which no man had yet sailed. For seven years St. Brandon sailed
on the unknown sea, discovering unknown islands, until he reached the
Island of Saints--the goal of his desires. And the fact remains that
for ten centuries after this an island, known as Brandon's Isle, was
marked on maps somewhere to the west of Ireland, though to the end
it remained as mysterious as the island of Thule.

Here is the old story. Brandon, abbot of a large Irish monastery
containing one thousand monks, sailed off in an "osier boat covered
with tanned hides and carefully greased," provisioned for seven years.
After forty days at sea they reached an island with steep sides, where
they took in fresh supplies. Thence the winds carried the ship to
another island, where they found sheep--"every sheep was as great as
an ox."

"This is the island of sheep, and here it is ever summer," they were
informed by an old islander.

This may have been Madeira. They found other islands in the
neighbourhood, one of which was full of singing-birds, and the passing
years found them still tossing to and fro on the unknown sea, until
at last the end came. "And St. Brandon sailed forty days south in full
great tempest," and another forty days brought the ship right into
a bank of fog. But when the fog lifted "they saw the fairest country
eastward that any man might see, it was so clear and bright that it
was a heavenly sight to behold; and all the trees were charged with
ripe f