Current Topics

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIV, Issue 1, 1 May 1896, Page 3

Current Topics

AT HOME AND ABROAD.

THE LONDON Tablet AND THE VOYAGE OF 8T BRENDAN.

The Reviewer in the London Tablet of " Bren. danisna ; 8t Brendan, the voyages in story and legend, by the Rev Denis O'Donoghue, P.P., Ardfert, Dublin, Brown and Nolan," praises the author* ship of the woik, bat discredits the strange story found in many medieval M^S. " The book is at once popular and scholarlikt." " The author is not only a learned Irish scholar, which counts for much, bat be has evidently the farther advantage of a thorough knowledge of the saint's own country.' 1 We have not read " Brendaniaoa," bat no doubt this contributor to Irish literature fully deserves the praise acoordvd to him. When, bowtver, the writer in our English contemporary speaks of the voyage of 8t Brendan as " a wild tale," as a story " never meant to be a serious record of travel," as a legend — from first to last « romance,'' we are inclined to cry " halt " ! The reviewer concedes that St Brendan is a " real person "a saint towards whom the Irish of the present day show no little devotion." "That he visited Bogland, continues the writer, "is certain, and that he, with a few faithful companions, ventured forth on the broad ocean in the hope of finding new lands wherein to preach the Gosptl is highly probable. Did he reach America? Father O'Donogue seems to thick that very possibly h« did. To our thinking there is no evidence one way or the other. When, however, we picture to ounelves the frail barques used in those days, that he and bis crew sboald go so far and then find their way back again to Ireland seemß improbable." Notwithstanding the corroborative evidence in Norse Sagas of early Irish colonisation in America, the Tablet reviewer, because of the " frail baiques used in those days " finds great difficulty in accepting as even probable the " weird tale " to be found in many an old manuscript.

THE FBAIL BARQUES OF OLDEN lIMKS.

The President of the Dunedin Catholic Literary Society, in the inaugural address of the session ol 1894, discussed the probability of the voyage of St Brendan, and replied to this very objection. We give an extract: — "Was it really possible in those rude days," said the lecturer, " when the compass was ur.known in Europe, fur a frail barque to cross the ocean and reach America in safety ? The close reader of the modern newspaper will immediately answer that what has been Beveral times accomplished by daring adventurers in very small craft in our own time, could, as far as the size of the vessel was concerned, have been done by the larger ships of the early centuries. Unless I am greatly mistaken, the journey across the rough Atlantic was successfully made not very long ago by one man in a very small yacht, a veritable toy Bhip. Indeed, a writer in the very last number of the Fortnightly Review says that the trans-Atlantic journey was recently made by one man »Dd a dog in a dingy. The three caravels of Columbus were of small tonnage and made of tarred wood. The largest, the Santa Maria, was not more than one hundred toes. The Pinta was about seventy tons burden, and the smallest vessel, La Nina, was only fifty tons — if even that. We Bhould net care to cross the Ta6man sea, from New Zealand to Australia, in an open craft of fifty tons. As a matter of fact, only two of the caravels of Columbus were decked throughout. In small vessels, generally open, except at stem and stero, the ancients undertook long voyages over dangerous seas. They had stoutly built vessels made of pine and cedar and oak. Many ships in the time of Trajan had bottoms sheathed with lead and fastened with copper. The hardy seamen of the northern coast, who had to conttnd with rougher etas and the great Atlantic swell, built strong compact vessels for their daring voyages.'' It it certain that the hardy Norsemen visited and revisited America. According to the Chinese annals America was discovered by a Buddhist monk named Hosi-schin in the fifth centurj. He called the land Fnsaog, and his description tallies wonderfully with accounts given of the ancient people of Mexico. Japanese junks, blown out of their course, found their way from time to time to the western

shores of America, The boats, in which " Papas " or Culdees of northern Scotland, voyaged in the rough northern seas to the Orkneys and Iceland could Btand as much Btormy weather as coasting traders manned by Chinese or Japanese. As far as seamanship, spirit of adventure, and style of barque is concerned we see no difficulty in receiving the Brendanian story.

COBEOBOBATITB KVIDBNCB.

Thb Irish sailor monks of the sixth century did no+, it is true, make tbeir adventurous voyages of disjovery in vessels of the stamp of South Pacific steamships or huge Atlantic liners. There is sot the slightest doubt that they made their way to Iceland, and were familiar with the islands in the rough northern seas. Are Thorgitlson, eurnamed Are Frodhe or the learned, writing of the time of the establishment of tb« Norwegians in Iceland ntar the end of the ninth century, says : -"There were Christians there, such the Norwegian! oall Papas (Ouldees of St Columns), but they soon departed, as they would not remain with heathens : they left behind some Irish books, bells and crozere, from which it may be concluded they were Irish." Frequent mention is made in the old Scandinavian chronicles of these Papas whom tbe pirates cf the north, after burning the monastery of lona (tbe centre of the Culdees) in 800, forced to leave the Shstlands the Orkneys, and the Faroes. The Norse corsairs destroyed tbe Irish colony in Iceland. It is believed that the fugitives sailed to tbe west and landed on what the Sagas called " Vinland," " Ireland it Mikla," " Hvitramannaland " — Vineland, Great Ireland, or Whisj Men's Land. The Norße chronicles do not claim tbe honour of dis* covery of Amercia for their countrymen. They i elate the voyage* of Are Marsson, Bjoern Breidvikingikappe, and Gudhleif Gudblangson who were driven on the coast of " Great Ireland " between 982 and 1030 ; of Eric, the discoverer of Greenland in 986, and of Bjoe-in Herfulfson, who sighted Labrador in 1099. They do not say that the " frail barques used in those times " made a discovery of America by Irish sailor monks impossible, Quite the contrary. Independent Scandinavian testimony in tbe Sagas translated by Professor Bafn, c-f Oopebagao, establish the strong probability of visits having be#n paid at different times to America by Irish navigators. Fresh light it thrown by them upon the " wild tale " contained in several MSS. in theßibliotbcque Nutionale, Paris, and if we remberarigh', also the Bodleian Library at Oxford. Our purpose in writing is not to give a hist ry of a fascinating narrative wbicb, in lecture form, has already appet>red in our columns. We deal with the probability or otherwise of a long voyage over stormy seas in " the frail barques ÜBed in those times." An extract from a letter written in 1874 by Colonel Barclay Kinnon, formerly of the United States North Pacific Surveying Expedition, while it gives the author's opinions as to " the possible passage at an early age of Chinese to tbe North American Continent," will be'p oar readers to accept the probability of pre-Columbian voyages to America from Europe. This gentleman sailed for two years and upwards of 40,000 miles in a vessel called the Fenimore Cooper. The Fenimore Cooper was 75 tons, and therefore smaller than the caravtl in which Columbus sailed from Palos. She was originally a small New York pilot boat, and " after leaviog N«w York she went to Africa, Java, Ctiina, J*pan, California, and back to Japan, where she finally laid her bones to dry." Colonel Kinnon writes : — ■'To a landsman, unfamiliar with long voyages, the mere idea of being ' alone on the wide, wide sea,' with nothing but water visible, even for an hour, conveys a strange cease of deeolatioa, of daring and of adventure. But in truth it is regarded as a mere trifle, not only by seafaring men, but even by the rudest races in all parts cf the world, and I have no doubt that from the remotest ages and on all Bbores, fishermen in open boats, canoes, or even coracles, guided simply by the starß and the currents, have not hesitated to go far out of eight of land, At the present day natives of many of t> c South Pacific islands undertake without a compass, and successfully, long voyages, which astonish even a regular Jack tar, who is not often astonished at anything. If these can be done by savagep, it hardly seems possible. that the Asiatic-American voyage was not successfully performed by people of ad vanced scientific culture, who had, it is generally believed, the compass, and who from an early age were proficient in astronomy." Apply these words of an experienced sailor, who had sailed 40,000 mileß in a 75 ton boat, to

the scientific and maritime countries of Europe— «nd ilreland was not last in tbe list of civilised nations. We see little reason for minimising the voyaging power of tbe stout b irqaes of a time when men were adventurous and brave on sea as well as lani.