United States or Faroe Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Once in seven years the people saw from shore the island of Hy-Brasail. The monks tried to stop its wanderings by prayer and by fiery arrows, yet without avail. Kirwan claimed to have landed on it, and he brought back strange money that he said was used by its people. So late as 1850 Brasail Rock remained on the British Admiralty chart, to show how hard tradition dies.
He knew, for instance, of the enchanted island named Hy-Brasail, which could be seen from the coast of Ireland only once in seven years, and which the priests had vainly tried to disenchant.
From year unto year on the ocean's blue rim, The beautiful spectre showed lovely and dim; The golden clouds curtained the deep where it lay, And it looked like an Eden away, far away! A peasant who heard of the wonderful tale, In the breeze of the Orient loosened his sail; From Ara, the holy, he turned to the west, For though Ara was holy, Hy-Brasail was blest.
Humboldt thinks that the wood called Brazil-wood was supposed to have come from it, as it was known before the South American Brazil was discovered. A manuscript history of Ireland, written about 1636, in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, says that Hy-Brasail was discovered by a Captain Rich, who saw its harbor but could never reach it.
They went on shore, well armed; and he embraced them one by one, telling them that they were the happiest sight that island had seen for hundreds of years; that it was called Hy-Brasail or O-Brazile; that his ancestors had been princes of it, but For many years it had been taken possession of by enchanters, who kept it almost always invisible, so that no ship came there; and that for the same reason he and his friends were rendered unable to answer the sailors, even when they knocked at the door; and that the enchantment must remain until a fire was kindled on the island by good Christians.
For Earth levels all who have known her and loved her, And the soul fares forth where the great stars guide On the viewless path of the calling waters Out to Hy-Brasail upon the tide! Eleanor and Roger sat together in their own especial loop-hole window.
What is certain is that the island of Brazil or Hy-Brasail had appeared on maps ever since 1367 as being near the coast of Ireland; that many voyages were made from Bristol to find it, a hundred years later; that it was mentioned about 1636 as often seen from the shore; and that it appeared as Brazil Rock on the London Admiralty Charts until after 1850.
Partly for this reason and partly because none of Captain Nesbit's crew wished to return to the island, there came to be in time a feeling of distrust about all this rediscovery of Hy-Brasail or O-Brazile.
But the tide runs out through the gates of sunset, And the living fires of Atlantis glow Between the clouds and the long sea-level, Beyond the waters we used to know. Hy-Brasail gleams with its towers of beryl, Tourmaline, hyacinth, topaz and pearl, Free to the King if he have but the pass-word, Free to the veriest low-born churl.
At other times he fished in his father's boat, or drove calves for sale on the mainland, or cured salt after high tide in the caverns, or collected kelp for the farmers. But he was always looking forward to a time when he might get a glimpse of the island of Hy-Brasail, and make his way to it.
Word Of The Day