Tales Of The Enchanted Islands Of The Atlantic

Reproduction of the original.

A mix of history, legends, myths and seafaring lore from many ages and cultures about mysterious islands in the Atlantic. The Story of Atlantis, Taliessin of the Radiant Brow, The Swan-Children of Lir, Usheen in the Island of Youth, Bran the Blessed, The Castle of the Active Door, Merlin the Enchanter, Sir Lancelot of the Lake, The Half-Man, King Arthur at Avalon, Maelduin's Voyage, The Voyage of St. Brandan, Kirwan's Search for Hy-Brasail, The Isle of Satan's Hand, Antillia - the Island of the Seven Cities, Harald the Viking, The Search for Norumbega, The Guardians of the St. Lawrence, The Island of Demons, Bimini and the Fountain of Youth.

In times past there were enchanted islands in the Atlantic, islands of demons, islands which appeared and disappeared mysteriously, islands about which weird legends hovered and whose heroes were Taliessin of the Radiant Brow, the Swan-children of Lir, St. Brandan, Harald the viking and others.

In all ages and with all sea-going races there has always been something especially fascinating about an island amid the ocean. Its very existence has for all explorers an air of magic. An island offers to us heights rising from depths; it exhibits that which is most fixed beside that which is most changeable, the fertile beside the barren, and safety after danger. The ocean forever tends to encroach on the island, the island upon the ocean. They exist side by side, friends yet enemies. The island signifies safety in calm, and yet danger in storm; in a tempest the sailor rejoices that he is not near it; even if previously bound for it, he puts about and steers for the open sea. Often if he seeks it he cannot reach it. The present writer spent a winter on the island of Fayal, and saw in a storm a full-rigged ship drift through the harbour disabled, having lost her anchors; and it was a week before she again made the port. The order of the tales in the present work follows roughly the order of development, giving first the legends which kept near the European shore, and then those which, like St. Brandan's or Antillia, were assigned to the open sea or, like Norumbega or the Isle of Demons, to the very coast of America. Every tale in this book bears reference to some actual legend, followed more or less closely, and the authorities for each will be found carefully given in the appendix for such readers as may care to follow the subject farther. It must be remembered that some of these imaginary islands actually remained on the charts of the British admiralty until within a century. If even the exact science of geographers retained them thus long, surely romance should embalm them forever.

Reproduction of the original: Tales o9f the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic by Thomas Wentworth Higginson