Читать книгу Legendary Islands of the Atlantic: A Study of Medieval Geography онлайн

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We know that the Greeks of Pythias’ time coasted as far north as Britain and probably Scandinavia and had most likely made the acquaintance still earlier of the Fortunate Islands (two or more of the Canary group), similarly following downward the African shore. Long afterward the Roman Pliny knew Madeira and her consorts as the Purple Islands; Sertorius contemplated a possible refuge in them or other Atlantic island neighbors; and Plutarch wrote confidently of an island far west of Britain and a great continent beyond the sea where Saturn slept. Other almost prophetic utterances of the kind have been culled from classical authors, but they have mostly the air of speculation. It cannot be said that the Greeks or Romans devoted much energy to the remoter reaches of the ocean.

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Ireland was never subject to Rome, though influenced by Roman trade and culture. From prehistoric times the Irish had done some sea roving, as their Imrama, or sea sagas, attest; and this roving was greatly stimulated in the first few centuries of conversion to Christianity by an abounding access of religious zeal. Irish monks seem to have settled in Iceland before the end of the eighth century and even to have sailed well beyond it. There are good reasons for believing that they had visited most of the islands of the eastern Atlantic archipelagoes. We cannot suppose that this rather reckless persistency ended there in such a period of expansion. It is quite possible that we owe to this trait the Island of Brazil, in the latitude of southern Ireland, as an American souvenir on so many medieval maps (Ch. IV). It is certain that the “Navigatio” of St. Brendan scattered St. Brandan Islands, real or fanciful, over the ocean wastes of a credulous cartography (Ch. III).