Brasil (mythical island)

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Brasil
Native name:
Hy-Brasil, Hy Brasil, Hy Breasil, Hy Breasail, Hy Breasal, Hy Brazil, I-Brasil
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Brasil (far left) as shown in relation to Ireland on a map by Abraham Ortelius (1572)
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EtymologyScript error: No such module "Lang".: in honour of the descendants of Bresail[1]
Geography
LocationMythical, Atlantic Ocean

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Brasil, also known as Hy-Brasil (from the Irish Gaelic: Script error: No such module "Lang".) among several other variants,[2] is a phantom island said to lie in the Atlantic Ocean[3] west of Ireland. Irish myths described it as cloaked in mist except for one day every seven years, when it becomes visible but still cannot be reached.

Nomenclature

The historian Walter Scaife (1890) noted that Brasil has been charted at various locations (cf. § Appearance on maps) with an almost equally diverse variation on the toponymy (Scaife listed thirteen spellings for "Brasil"[a]).[4]

Etymology

The etymology of the names Brasil and Hy-Brasil is uncertain, but the Italian geographer Paolo Revelli [it] (1937) was sure it was related to the wood dye brazil. Medieval Latin Script error: No such module "Lang". was the term for a dye that enjoyed great popularity as a trading commodity in the twelfth century throughout Western Europe. It has been speculated that the widespread appearance of the name served as a locational marker for sources of the dye, primarily for sailors from the Republic of Genoa where most of the maps originate.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. The name of the country Brazil (Portuguese: Script error: No such module "Lang".) is also connected with the brazilwood dye.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. It has been argued that the Irish island cannot be connected with tropical brazilwood, which cannot grow so far north, but this argument can be countered by the fact that "brazil" dye itself can be obtained from other trees that do grow in Europe.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.

In Irish tradition it is said to come from the Irish Script error: No such module "Lang". (meaning 'descendants/clan of Bresal'), a minor Gaelic clan of northeastern Ireland, or less frequently from the Old Irish Script error: No such module "Lang". 'island' + Script error: No such module "Lang". 'beauty, worth; great, mighty'.[1]

Appearance on maps

Brasil has been charted on different maps at various locations, such as "a great Antarctic continent, extending to the South Pole, or a small island near the Arctic Circle; or.. the southern part of South America or.. the vicinity of the coast of Ireland..."[5]

Nautical charts identified an island called "Bracile" west of Ireland in the Atlantic Ocean in a portolan chart by Angelino Dulcert circa 1325, the Rex Tholomeus portolan chart circa 1360[6][7] and the Catalan Atlas circa 1375.[8]

Later it appeared as Script error: No such module "Lang". in the Venetian map of Andrea Bianco (1436), attached to one of the larger islands of a group of islands in the Atlantic.[9] This was identified for a time with the modern island of Terceira in the Azores, where a volcanic mount at the bay of its main town, Angra do Heroismo, is still named Monte Brasil.[10] A Catalan chart of about 1480 labels two islands "Illa de brasil", one to the south west of Ireland and one south of "Illa verde" or Greenland.[11]

In 1526, Roger Barlow translated Martín Fernández de Enciso's Script error: No such module "Lang". into English and included the following description:

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On maps the island was shown as being circular, often with a central strait or river running east–west across its diameter.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. Despite the failure of attempts to find it, this appeared regularly on maps lying south west of Galway Bay until 1865, by which time it was called "Brasil Rock".[11]

Several shallow water geographical features have been suggested as the site of the legendary Brasil, such as Porcupine Bank, Yellow Ridge (Template:Langx), or Rockall.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found.

Searches for the island

Expeditions left Bristol in 1480 and 1481 to search for the island; and a letter written by Pedro de Ayala, shortly after the return of John Cabot (from his expedition in 1497), reports that land found by Cabot had been "discovered in the past by the men from Bristol who found Brasil".[12][13]

In 1674, a Captain John Nisbet claimed to have seen the island when on a journey from France to Ireland, stating that the island was inhabited by large black rabbits and a magician who lived alone in a stone castle, yet the character and the story were a literary invention by Irish author Richard Head.Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Footnotes/anchor_id_list' not found. Roderick O'Flaherty in A Chorographical Description of West or H-Iar Connaught (1684) tells us "There is now living, Morogh O'Ley (Script error: No such module "Lang".), who imagines he was personally on O'Brasil for two days, and saw out of it the Aran Islands, Golamhead [by Lettermullen], Irrosbeghill, and other places of the west continent he was acquainted with."

Hy-Brasil has also been identified with Porcupine Bank, a shoal in the Atlantic Ocean about 200 kilometres (120 mi) west of Ireland[14] and discovered in 1862. As early as 1870, a paper was read to the Geological Society of Ireland suggesting this identification.[15] The suggestion has since appeared more than once, e.g., in an 1883 edition of Notes and Queries.[16]

Irish poet Gerald Griffin wrote about Hy-Brasil in the early nineteenth century.[17]

Mary Burke's short story uses the myth as an allegory of the breach caused by the Northern Irish Troubles. Mary Burke, “Hy-Brasil” in The Faber Best New Irish Short Stories, 2004–5 Ed. David Marcus. London: Faber & Faber, 2005, 101–105.[18]

In The Hollow Hills, part of Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy, several characters believe (incorrectly) that the wizard Merlin has hidden the young Prince Arthur on Hy-Brasil.[19]

In the 1989 film comedy Erik the Viking, Hy-Brasil is the location of the Horn Resounding, said to allow mortals to enter Asgard and return home safely. In the film, it is said that if blood should ever be spilled on its shores the land would sink beneath the waves.[20]

In the 2009 book Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization, Graham Hancock attributed the appearance of Hy-Brasil on so many maps as evidence of a lost corpus of pre-Ptolemaic maps that showed evidence of substantial earth changes, including sunken islands.[21]

In H. G. Parry's 2023 novel, The Magician's Daughter, Hy-Brasil features as an enchanted island hidden from the rest of the world.[22]

See also

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Explanatory notes

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  1. ^ "Brasilia, Bresilia, Prislia, Prisilli, Brasielié, Brazili, Brasil, Brassil, Brazil, Brazill, Brazile, Presillg and Brasi"

References

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  1. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.McKillop, James (1998). "Hy Brasil". A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ Hy Brasil, Hy Breasil, Hy Breasail, Hy Breasal, Hy Brazil, I-Brasil
  3. ^ Script error: No such module "template wrapper".
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Freitag, Barbara (2013). Hy Brasil: The Metamorphosis of an Island: From Cartographic Error to Celtic Elysium. Amsterdam: Rodopi. p. 4. ISBN 9401209103.
  5. ^ Walter Scaife (1890) apud Template:Harvp
  6. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."A $7.5-million find: Overlooked Getty estate sale map turns out to be 14th century treasure". Los Angeles Times. 25 October 2023. Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Oldest Portolan Chart in America and The Fourth-Oldest Surviving "Complete" Portolan Chart of Europe". Retrieved 3 January 2024.
  8. ^ Lišèák, Vladimír: Mapa mondi (Catalan Atlas of 1375), Majorcan cartographic school, and 14th century Asia, Proc. Int. Cartogr. Assoc., pg 3, https://doi.org/10.5194/ica-proc-1-69-2018, 2018.
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Smith, Cynthia. "Hy-Brasil: The Supernatural Island". Library of Congress Blogs. Library of Congress. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  10. ^ Quadrant. Australia: Quadrant Magazine. Vol 32, p. 19, 1988. Google Books.
  11. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Fanneran, Vinny (19 May 2023). "Uncovering truth behind 'phantom Galway island' appearing on old maps that suddenly disappeared". Galway Beo. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Seaver, K.A. (1995). The Frozen Echo. Stanford University Press. p. 212. ISBN 0-8047-3161-6.
  13. ^ Adrian William Jaime, Valeria Tapia Cruz, Mairi Cowan, "Tudor England and Stewart Scotland Through Spanish Eyes: A Complete Transcription and Translation of Pedro de Ayala's Letter of 1498 to King Ferdinand of Castile and Queen Isabella of Aragon", Renaissance Studies (2026), p. 52. Script error: No such module "CS1 identifiers".
  14. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Velasco, Francisco; Landa, Jorge; Barrado, Joaquín; Blanco, Marian (2008). "Distribution, abundance, and growth of anglerfish (Lophius piscatorius) on the Porcupine Bank (west of Ireland)". ICES Journal of Marine Science. 65 (7): 1316. doi:10.1093/icesjms/fsn130. hdl:10261/327084.
  15. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Winsor, Justin (1889). Narrative and critical history of America. Vol. 1. Houghton, Mifflin and Company. p. 51.
  16. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Frazer, W. (December 1883), "O'Brazile or Hy Brazile", Notes and Queries, s6-VIII (207): 475, doi:10.1093/nq/s6-VIII.207.475a
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Griffin, Gerald (1846). "Hy-Brasail—The Isle of the Blest". In MacCarthy, D. F. (ed.). The Book of Irish Ballads. Dublin: James Duffy. p. 34.
  18. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Review: The Faber Book of Best New Irish Short Stories 2004-5". The Guardian. 27 May 2005.
  19. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Stewart, Mary (1980). Mary Stewart's Merlin Trilogy. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. ISBN 0688003478.
  20. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Erik the Viking (1989)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  21. ^ Hancock, Graham. Underworld: The Mysterious Origins of Civilization. United States: Crown, 2009.
  22. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."The Magician's Daughter". Publishers Weekly. 21 November 2022. ISSN 0000-0019. Retrieved 18 October 2025.

Further reading

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