first place, the notion is not particularly recondite, and it has at
least this possible foundation in fact, that, as I have been told by
sailors, the back of a whale of advanced years, when asleep at the
surface, may be and has been mistaken from some distance, greatly owing
to the accretions upon it, for the top of a reef. Again, a somewhat
similar notion occurs in Lucian's _Traveller's Tale_, which was much
more likely to be known to the Irish fabulist. Lastly, I must observe
that all this is gloss. The word _whale_ (cete) is never applied to the
animal but always _fish_ (piscis) or _monster_ (bellua) or _beast_
(bestie), and the whole thing, with the notion of its vast size, and the
attempt to join the tail to the mouth, which brings it into connection
with the emblem of eternity, which is due, I believe, to the
Phoenicians, but which we ourselves so often use upon coffins and
grave-stones, seems to bring it into connection rather with the idea of
the Midgard-Worm, the great under-lying world-serpent which figures so
largely in the mythic cosmogony of the Scandinavians. I suggest that
this is the notion, of which the romancer may have heard from
Scandinavian sources; and there is even a kind of indication that it was
associated in his mind with the idea of paganism, as Brendan is made to
speak elsewhere of God having made the most terrible (_immanissimam_) of
beasts subject unto them.

On leaving the spot where the monster had sunk, they first returned to
the provider's isle, from the top of which they perceived another near
at hand, covered with grass and woods and full of flowers, and thither
they went.

On the south shore of this island they found a river a little broader
than the ship, and up this they towed her for a mile, when they came to
the fountain-head of the stream. It was a wondrous fountain, and above
it there was a tree marvellously beautiful, spreading rather than high,
but all covered with white birds, so covered that they hid its foliage
and branches. (The notion is perhaps taken from a tree loaded with
snow.) 'And when the man of God saw it, he began to think in himself
what or wherefore it should be, that such a multitude of birds should be
gathered together in one place. And the thing distressed him so, that he
wept, and fell down upon his knees, and besought the Lord, saying, "O
God, Who knowest the things which are unknown, and makest manifest the
things which are hidden, Thou knowest how th