the publications of the Percy Society, London, 1844 (XIV.), and it is
followed in the same volume by an English prose version of 1527. A partial
narrative in Latin prose, with an English version, may be found in W. J.
Rees's "Lives of the Cambro-British Saints" (Llandovery, 1853), pp. 251,
575. The account of Brandan in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists may
be found under May 16, the work being arranged under saints' days. This
account excludes the more legendary elements. The best sketch of the
supposed island appears in the _Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_ for
1845 (p. 293), by D'Avezac. Professor O'Curry places the date of the
alleged voyage or voyages at about the year 560 ("Lectures on the
Manuscript Materials for Irish History," p. 289). Good accounts of the
life in the great monasteries of Brandan's period may be found in Digby's
"Mores Catholici" or "Ages of Faith"; in Montalembert's "Monks of the
West" (translation); in Villemarque's "La Legende Celtique et la Poesie
des Cloistres en Irlande, en Cambrie et en Bretagne" (Paris, 1864). The
poem on St. Brandan, stanzas from which are quoted in the text, is by
Denis Florence McCarthy, and may be found in the _Dublin University
Magazine_ (XXXI. p. 89); and there is another poem on the subject--a
very foolish burlesque--in the same magazine (LXXXIX. p. 471). Matthew
Arnold's poem with the same title appeared in _Fraser's Magazine_
(LXII. p. 133), and may be found in the author's collected works in the
form quoted below.

The legends of St. Brandan, it will be observed, resemble so much the
tales of Sindbad the Sailor and others in the "Arabian Nights"--which have
also the island-whale, the singing birds, and other features--that it is
impossible to doubt that some features of tradition were held in common
with the Arabs of Spain.

In later years (the twelfth century), a geographer named Honore d'Autun