2 - Deserts and Forests in the Ocean

Summary

But north, still north, Saint Brandan steer'd;

And now no bells, no convents more!

The hurting Polar lights are near'd,

The sea without a human shore.

Matthew Arnold, ‘Saint Brandan’ (1860)

And when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm lay on us, all hope of our being saved was now taken away.

Acts of the Apostles, 27.20

The End of the Désert Liquide: Benedeit's Voyage de Saint Brandan

Benedeit's Voyage de Saint Brandan (c. 1118) has often been unjustly labelled a translation of the anonymous Latin Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (eighth century). It cannot be readily assumed that Benedeit's skilful adaptation of his source material results from a direct translation of the Navigatio. M. D. Legge has even argued for a Latin version of the legend prepared by Benedeit for Henry I's first wife, Queen Maud or Matilda, which he himself translated into French as the Voyage. As one of the more widely read poems of the pre-modern period, the Latin Navigatio boasts over 120 extant manuscripts and has been translated into nearly all European vernaculars. Scholars of early Insular literature agree that the Navigatio either belongs to, or is cognate with, the Irish genre of the immram, or maritime voyagetale, which David Dumville renders literally as ‘rowing about’. Legge has alleviated any remaining concerns as to the genre of Benedeit's work. Her assessment of the Voyage has perhaps not gained the currency it deserves, but is has not lost anything of its accuracy: ‘This is not a Life, although it is so described in the manuscripts, but might well be labelled a romance in its own right.’