THE SCENE: In this scene from The Voyage of Saint Brendan, a medieval crew of Irish monks encounters a structure so strange that one might almost call it otherworldly.
THE TEXT: One day when they had celebrated their Masses, a pillar in the sea appeared to them that seemed to be not far distant. Still it took them three days to come up to it. When the man of God approached it, he tried to see the top of it – but he could not, it was so high. It was higher than the sky. Moreover a wide-meshed net was wrapped around it. The mesh was so wide that the boat could pass through its opening. They could not decide of what substance the net was made. It had the colour of silver, but they thought that that it seemed harder than marble. The pillar was of bright crystal.
Brendan spoke to his brothers: “Ship the oars and take down the mast and sail. Let some of you at the same time take hold of the meshes of the net.” There was a large space, roughly about a mile, at all points between the net and the pillar, and likewise the net went down a similar distance into the sea. When they had done what they had been ordered, the man of God said to them: “Let the boat in through one of the meshes, so that we can have a closer look at the wonders of our creator.”
When they had gone in and looked around here and there, the sea was as clear to them as glass, so that they could see everything that was underneath. They could examine the foundations of the pillar and also the edge of the net lying on the sea bed. The light of the sun was as bright below as above the water.
They found a chalice, of the same substance as the net, and a religion plate, of the same colour as the pillar, lying in a window in the side of the pillar facing the south. When the night was over the brothers began to row towards the north. When they had passed through an opening in the net they raised the mast and sail, while some of the brothers still held the meshes of the net until all was made ready on the boat. When the sail had been spread, a favouring wind began to blow behind them so that they did not need to row but only to hold the ropes and rudder. So their boat was borne along for eight days towards the north.
– The Voyage of Saint Brendan, 10th Century AD
