“On the ocean that hollows the rocks where ye dwell
A shadowy land has appeared, as they tell;
Men thought it a region of sunshine and rest,
And they called it Hy-Brasail, the isle of the blest;
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!”
Isle of the Blest, by Gerald Griffin, available online.
On the James Imray & Son Chart map, a skilfully drawn, highly detailed map of the North Atlantic made in 1859, you will find a small mark west of the coast of Ireland. It is named Brasil Rock, and is one of the last cartographic remnants of an island that has inspired poets, explorers and cartographers for centuries. Yet does not exist. This is the story of the mythical island of Hy-Brasil and its links to Celtic mythology, the voyages of John Cabot and a certain nation in South America.
On the map
“Weste of yreland is an ylonde called the ilande of brasyll which stondeth in 51 degrees. Hit is almost rounde, of longitude it hath 12 leges and of latitude 9. ffrom Yreland to this yle of brasyll is 70 legis”
Suma de Geographia, by Martín Fernández de Enciso, translation by Roger Barlow, 1526
The first known cartographic depiction of Hy-Brasil comes from a portolan chart made in 1325. Created by the Italian-Majorcan cartographer Angelino Dulcert, the chart shows an island named “Bracile” in the Atlantic Ocean, just west of Ireland. The name is thought to derive from the Uí Breasail, one of the ancient clans of north-east Ireland. Another notable example is the 1375 Catalan Atlas. Just like on Dulcert’s map, here Hy-Brasil is depicted as a perfect circle, this time in red – the colour signified that the island was considered blessed or supernatural. For the first time, the island was also split by a river running down its middle.
As rumours spread of this unusual place, the island soon started appearing regularly on maps and nautical charts. The Ottoman Turkish cartographer Piri Reis’s 1513 map also featured Hy-Brasil, again off the west coast of Ireland. Gerardus Mercator, the famous Flemish cartographer, charted Hy-Brasil at least four times. Across 300 years of mapmaking, the coordinates of the island, at a latitude of 51°N, were remarkably consistent. An indication that in many cases, cartographers simply copied each other instead of relying on up-to-date reports.
Legend and literature
“There is now living, Morogh O’Ley, who imagines he was himself personally on… the O’Brasil, for two days… He says it is a place where the sun sets last, and that it is seen from the shores of Aran once every seven years.”
A Chorographical Description of West or h-Iar Connaught, by Roderic O’Flaherty, 1684
The legend of the island of Hy-Brasil, however, is thought to be much older. The island has been linked to Irish oral traditions of the “Otherworld”, a mythical land to the west. As one version has it, Hy-Brasil lies shrouded in mist and is usually invisible to sailors. Every seven years, however, it emerges from the shadows. There are several comparable islands also found in Irish mythology, including Tír na nÓg (Land of Youth), Emain Ablach (Apple Island), and Mag Mell (Plain of Delight).
In the 6th century, the semi-mythical Brendan the Navigator is thought to have found the Promised Land of the Saints, a mist-shrouded island of eternal summer and abundance. This island bears a striking resemblance to Hy-Brasil, and has also fuelled rumours that Brendan travelled as far as the Americas, some 900 years before Columbus.
There are also some notable references to Hy-Brasil in the written records. The 7th-century Irish text The Voyage of Bran, for example, describes an island very similar to Hy-Brasil. In the 1340s, an anonymous Spanish Franciscan monk claimed to have visited “Brasil Island”, to the west of Ireland. In 1685, The Irish historian Roderick O’Flaherty cited the story of Morogh O’Ley, who was abducted by strangers and taken to the enchanted island.
Hunting Hy-Brasil
Although most of the stories about Hy-Brasil are linked to Ireland, the English city of Bristol has its own unique connection. Here, sailors often told of voyage to the west and the discovery of a mysterious island. It is said that several 15th-century expeditions departed from the English port to search for Hy-Brasil, but to no avail. When John Cabot, the Italian who claimed North America for the English, travelled from Bristol to North America in the late 15th century, Hy-Brasil was apparently an inspiration for his voyages.
The legend of Hy-Brasil caught the imagination of countless others. Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, for example, was obsessed with mapping the Atlantic and sent several expeditions to find phantom islands, including Hy-Brasil. Travelling under Prince Henry’s orders, Diogo de Teive instead found the Azorean islands of Flores and Corvo in 1452.
Christopher Columbus reportedly heard tales of Hy-Brasil on a visit to Galway. When he arrived in the Americas, Columbus deliberately sought out “brasil wood”, a commodity rumoured to be found on Hy-Brasil. Then there is Pedro Álvares Cabral. When the Portuguese explorer discovered the coast of South America in 1500, many believed he had finally found the long-lost island. This belief in part explains the name of the country of Brazil. Yes, the South American nation is officially named after pau-brasil, or brazilwood, but some historians have argued that the name gained acceptance largely thanks to the European obsession with the mythical island of Hy-Brasil.
Fading into myth
“I have myself (with my mother and several other friends) seen the illusion. It was a clear evening, with no mist. The sun had set, and the sky was very bright. We saw a large island with hills and valleys, and several smaller ones, all very distinct. We watched it for a long time, and it did not change its shape. We were all quite sure it was not a cloud. It was the last time it was seen. The next year it was removed from the Admiralty charts.”
TJ Westropp, Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North Atlantic, available online
As maritime traffic became increasingly prominent in the Atlantic, it began to dawn on people that the island might be no more than a figment of the imagination. In the 1780s, the French and British navies began hunting out unconfirmed reefs and islands in order to clear shipping routes. Hy-Brasil was conspicuous by its absence. Though it continued to appear on official maps for another 90 years, it was often downgraded from an island to a large rock.
In 1872, there was a final confirmed sighting of the Hy-Brasil. It came from the Irish archaeologist TJ Westropp, a man with an impeccable reputation. Apparently, Westropp had seen an island appear off the coast of County Clare appear and then slowly dissolve into the mist. With hindsight, however, scholars believe this apparition was a ‘Fata Morgana’, a kind of mirage caused by temperature inversions that distort the shape of the horizon and create the appearance of rocks or islands.
Westropp’s vision can be seen as a kind of a last hurrah for the concept of a real and existing Hy-Brasil. In the same decade, the British Admiralty, the world’s leading authority on the Atlantic Ocean, conducted a thorough revision of their charts. They also carried out deep-sea sounding over the area where Hy-Brasil was thought to be located, and found depths of thousands of feet. In other words, the sea was nowhere near shallow enough to contain an island. By 1873, Hy-Brasil had been removed from all official charts. Brazil, of course, the South American nation that shares its name, still persists.
Postscript
In the 20th century, oceanographers identified the Porcupine Bank, a huge underwater plateau some 120 miles west of Ireland. The sea levels here were much lower 15,000 to 20,000 years ago. Studies indicate that at this time, Porcupine Bank would have been a large island in the exact area where Hy-Brasil was placed on medieval maps. Perhaps – but only perhaps – the legend of Hy-Brasil could represent some broad cultural memory, passed down through the generations?
