THE SCENE: The voyage of Saint Brendan, which details the travels of a group of 6th century Irish monks, contains descriptions of many surreal occurrences, as the passage below demonstrates.
THE TEXT: It happened on one occasion that as Brendan was celebrating the feast of Saint Peter the Apostle in his boat, they found the sea so clear that they could see whatever was underneath them. When they looking into the deep they saw the different kinds of fish lying on the sand below. It even seemed to them that they could touch them with their hands, so clear was that sea. They were like herds lying in pastures. They were so numerous that they looked liked a city of circles as they lay, their heads touching their tails.
Saint Brendan began to intone as loudly as he could. Others of the brothers kept their eyes on the fish all the time. When the fish heard him singing, they came up from the bottom and began to swim in a circle round the boat – in such a way that the brothers could not see beyond the fish anywhere, so great was the multitude of the different fishes swimming. Still they did not come near the boat, but kept swimming at a distance in a wide arc. And so they kept swimming here and there until the man of God finished Mass. After this as if they were taking flight, they all swam by different paths of the ocean away from the sight of the servants of God.
– The Voyage of Saint Brendan, 10th Century AD
