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The Voyage of Saint Brendan – A Journey to the Promised Land translated from the Latin by John J O’Meara

VISIT TO SAINT ENDA

SAINT BRENDAN and his companions, therefore, decided to fast for forty days - but for no more than three days at a time - and then to set out. When the forty days were over he said good-bye to the brothers, commended all to the man put in charge of his monastery, who was afterwards his successor there, and set out westwards with fourteen brothers to the island of a holy father, named Enda. There he stayed three days and three nights.

THE BUILDING OF THE BOAT

Having received the blessing of the holy father and of all the monks that were with him, he set out for a distant part of his native region where his parents were living. But he did not wish to see them. He pitched his tent at the edge of a mountain stretching far out into the ocean, in a place called Brendan's Seat, at a point where there was entry for one boat. Saint Brendan and those with him got iron tools and constructed a light boat ribbed with wood and with a wooden frame, as is usual in those parts. They covered it with ox-hides tanned with the bark of oak and smeared all the joints of the hides on the outside with fat. They carried into the boat hides for the makings of two other boats, supplies for forty days, fat for pre-paring hides to cover the boat and other things needed for human life. They also placed a mast in the middle of the boat and a sail and the other requirements for steering a boat. Then Saint Brendan ordered his brothers in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to enter the boat.