e breath of life. Three days after this, the
sea being stiller, they set out again towards the North.

One day they saw an island in the distance, and Brendan told them that
there were three companies, of children, of young men, and of elders,
and that one of the three brethren last come was there to make his
earthly pilgrimage. They came to shore. The island was so flat that it
seemed level with the sea. It had no trees nor anything that wind can
shake. It was vast, and was covered with something which the Latin text
calls _scaltae_--a word which I have failed to find in Ducange or in any
other authority which I have been able to consult. It is, however,
evidently, from the context, some kind of ground fruit, and may perhaps
be the strawberry or the Blaeberry--although the Latin for these seems
to be generally _fragum_ and _bacca myrtilii_. This fruit was white or
_purpureus_--wherein another difficulty arises as to the meaning of
_purpureus_. The individual berries were as big as large balls, and
tasted like honey. In this island were the three companies, who seemed
to be moving and standing in a kind of sacred dance, two moving round
while the one which had taken the farthest place stood still and sang,
'The Saints shall go from strength to strength: the God of gods will
appear in Zion.' It is vexatious that here the question of colour again
arises, as something very picturesque is evidently intended to be
described. The company of children were clad in pure and glistering
white, but the Latin, which is verbally followed by the French, gives
the colour of the young men's garments as hyacinthine, and that of the
elders' as purple. I have consulted all the authorities upon the
question that I can. The result is that it is disputed whether
hyacinthine means red or blue or both, and whether the Latin purple was
red or plum-coloured. I hazard the conjecture that there is here an
attempt to symbolize innocence, vigour, and ripeness, and that as the
first colour is certainly white, the others may be red and what we call
purple.

The voyagers landed at the fourth hour (10 A.M.) and the dance went on
until noon, when the three companies sang together the lxvii., the lxx.,
and the cxvi. Psalms, adding again, 'the God of gods will appear in
Zion.' At 3 P.M. they sang likewise Psalms cxxx., cxxxiii., and what is
called in the Septuagint the cxlvii., viz., the last nine verses of that
so called in the A.V. At even they sang the