Nova Scotia by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online

with presents and
accurate directions for finding his way back to
Iceland.
        A number of legends speak about Irishmen venturing west by
accident or with good intentions. A story dated around 700 tells of
the voyage of Bran who has a vision of a beautiful woman and sets
off in three curraghs (skin boats), arriving at a place he calls
“The Land of Women.” The queen there keeps Bran for a year until he
can escape and return to Ireland. As he returns, he discovers that
centuries have passed instead of years. A crewman who steps back on
Irish soil dissolves into the sand, so Bran returns to the sea and
is never seen again.
        One of the more outlandish reports is that of the voyage (or
voyages) of Prince Madoc, a twelfth-century Welsh prince who
travelled to the Americas and sailed all along the coast from Nova
Scotia to Mexico. The place impressed him so positively that he
returned again with folks from Wales to establish a colony. He has
been identified with Quetzalcoatl as a legendary white man who
taught Native Americans to speak Welsh. Other reports surfaced
among later American colonists that there were Indians who spoke
Welsh but these curious people were never found.
    Another voyage involves a chief’s
son named Mael Duin, who sails in a curragh big enough for sixty
men in search of a bandit who murdered his father. They come across
many fantastic islands and creatures including giant ants, exotic
birds, monsters and mystifying creatures. At the furthest reach of
the journey, there are no beautiful enslaving women this time, but
simply a hermit who has the satchel of the great St. Brendan, who
had been there before.
        And this leads us to the story most reported by the Irish,
that of St. Brendan the Navigator, born around 489. Medieval maps
show something called “St. Brendan’s Isle” in various locations far
across the Atlantic from Europe. All we can say with reasonable
certainty is that Irish sailors, and probably monks as well, had
already been living in Iceland when the Norse arrived. It would be
a hopeful guess to say that Brendan actually made it to Nova Scotia
on his voyages, but the possibility is not to be ruled out.
Brendan’s tale was written up three or four hundred years after the
events were supposed to have occurred. The earliest story has him
setting out on a quest for a quiet and peaceful place, failing once
and trying it again, this time with success. A message from God
later tells him to give up the peace and quiet of the New World and
return to a less cloistered life in Ireland.
        The twelfth-century version of Brendan’s story sends him off
with thirty men to an earthly paradise retreat. An angel has told
him which direction to sail. Brendan encounters monsters, whales,
mermaids and even devils as he sails from island to island only to
return home after five years, never having found the promised land.
What he really wanted to find was a place of no violence or death.
Fearing that he might have failed because he was travelling in a
boat made from the slaughtered skins of animals, he built a wooden
one and set off with sixty men. This time he confronted more
monsters, sea cats and pygmy demons, but he eventually arrived at
yet another island, this one inhabited by a lone Irishman, a
survivor of some shipwreck, who told him the way to the dream
island. The narrative ends where Brendan arrives at the much
sought-after coast to find a man wearing brilliant white
feathers.
        In the long narrative that is the story of Nova Scotia, this
tale is probably of little concrete merit, except to show a healthy
contrast to the motivation of so many of the explorers who were to
follow. Here is an ancient Irishman plowing the seas in search of a
little peace and harmony. Had such a tradition prevailed, Nova
Scotia might have been populated by a wave of ancient European
peaceniks craving a contemplative life. Instead, what followed was
a long parade of aggressive men of commerce,