Celtic navigators and the New England stone chambers

A few days ago I wrote about the Minoans and the hypothesis that they visited America and traded native copper (pure metal) from Lake Superior in USA to the Mediterranean. I don't agree with that theory. Among the evidence put forward by those who do believe in it, was the existence of stone buildings in the northeastern states of the U.S.

There are stone structures found in different parts of New England and New York that have been attributed to European visitors. They are considered to sophisticated to have been built by the Native Americans who lived there, or by the later wave of settlers that came from Europe starting in the 1600s.

So, who built them? According to an article that has studied these structures (Lost Histories: The Story of New England’s Stone Chambers by Benjamin Lord, Northern Woodlands, Vol 20, No. 4 Winter 2013, p.24), some believe that they are the work of ancient European mariners, such as Celts.

The hypothesis is that thousands of years ago, Celts from Europe, crossed the North Atlantic and built these stone buildings in America.

Those who support this idea mention the stone structure at Mystery Hill, in Salem, New Hampshire, USA. or the Upton Chamber in Upton Massachusetts. They discard a colonial construction, or even a later origin (they may have been built as root cellars in the late 19th century) and consider that the natives couldn't have built them. So the explanation is that they are megalithic sites, similar to those erected by the Bronze Age Europeans 1,500 to 3,500 years ago.

Mystery Hill

This site is located at 105 Haverhill Rd, Salem, NH. It is a private site or park, known as "America's Stonehenge". It was acquired by William Goodwin, an archaeologist in 1936 and following his death in 1950, it was acquired in 1956 by an entrepreneur named Robert E. Stone, who charged an admission fee to see the massive stone structures. He also wrote some "papers" studying the site. The place is still operated by the Stone family. Below is a plan of the site (Source):

Goodwin believed that the site was built by Culdee Monks, who had crossed the Atlantic from Ireland (see my posts on Irish monks and America) around 1000 AD.

Stone, on the other hand promoted another origin, he asserted that the stones were aligned with astronomical points. Below I summarize on of his articles, published in 1971.

The site has many massive, stone structures and covers an area of 12 acres (6 ha). It has wells, stone walls, buildings, carvings, drains, and chambers. One stone slab was named with the eye-catching name of the "Sacrificial Table", located inside the site's largest structure. There are "monoliths" around the site that Stone argued were set with "astronomical alignments, similar to "Stonehenge" in England, are quite impressive. Thus far, the winter and summer Solstices for both rising and setting of the sun are very accurate, when viewed from the exact center of the site; the "Sacrificial Table", 500 feet away. Setting of the sun during'the Equinox also lines up on a dolmen-like structure built into the outer wall" Source.

Stone provides a historic timeline for the site: The Pattee family lived near it from 1823 to 1847, they built a house on it which burned down in 1855. The Pattees quarried the site, destroying up to 40% of it. Some slabs ended up as curb stones in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Following Stone's acquisition, the newly formed New England Antiquities Research Association (N EARA) in 1964, the site was excavated and radiocarbon dated.

Stone gave an age of 180 BC and 1045 BC and asserted that they "are indicative that a previously unrecorded megalithic culture was in existence in this hemisphere... This culture... not only included sites like Mystery Hill, but various other stone-constructions that we are documenting, such as dolmens, tunnels, strange non-Colonial walls, unusual wells and many other oddities."

Some views of the site, the "monolith" with the sign is one of those said to mark astronomical positions.

Views of Mystery Hill. Source

Barry Fell, in 1975 visited the site and coincidentially, Stone found a tablet inside one of the chambers at Mystery Hill with inscriptions that Fell immediately recognized as Ogam, an ancient Celtic sript. He also concluded that one of them was written in Libyan while the other was Phoenician or Iberian Punic script. According to Fell, one of the buildings had been dedicated to Baal by Canaanites who reached this spot.

Fell wrote a book about ancient European visitors to America (America B.C.: Ancient Settlers in the New World) mentioning other similar sites and Celtic inscriptions in New England and further inland, like the Davenport tablets. Fell says that Celts from what is now Spain, reached America 3,000 years ago establishing their kingdom, Iargalon, there. Source

Mystery Hill has been radiocarbon dated to around 2,000 BC, but this age is compatible with Native American occupation. A calendar aligned with the position of the sun (Solstices and equinox) is unknown among the Algonquian tribes so it is probably a coincidence. But, they were capable of building large structures like the massive earth mounds (see my posts on mound-builders).

Mainstream archaologists consider that "America's Stonehenge" is the work of either American natives or later settlers, and was not built by Bronze Age Europeans. (Source)

Mystery Hill Tourist Attraction

The official website of the America's Stonehenge tourist attraction states that:

"Unfortunately, the original builders of America's Stonehenge remain unknown. While we do know that early construction happened here about 4,000 years ago, no diagnostic artifacts from that time have been discovered. The earliest diagnostic artifacts, attributed to the Pawtucket people, are dated to about 2,000 years ago. Similarities to megalithic structures in Europe, as well as the discovery of possible Old World inscriptions, has led some researchers to believe that there may be a connection between this site and ancient Western European or Mediterranean cultures. In the ongoing research of this site, we strive to keep an open mind. Before forming any conclusions about the origins of this site, it is important to follow where the evidence leads. Hopefully, with continued study, we can reveal who actually built these structures and what culture or cultures used the site over its thousands of years of history."

We must point out that diggings at the sie have discovered many Native American objects including a dugout canoe, a teepee, stone tools and ceramics, but no Celtic, Irish or Phoenician or Carthaginian artifacts, except for the "inscribed stone" the Baal Stone discovered in 1975 and deciphered by Fell. Pictured below:

Baal Stone. Source

It has what appears to be chiseled lines on it, in a random and disorganized way. Not a neat inscription or glyphs. Fell says it reads: "To Baal on behalf of the Canaanites this is dedicated." (Source).

This website has a list of the astronomical alignments mentioned for this site, and also includes pictures of the place.

Finally, there is a paper online that mentions a blue-light beams spotted at the American Stonehenge site common to all stonehenge-type buildings as well as pyramids. But they are not ghosts but "Manitou" that "can perhaps be categorized as signals generated by geophysical events... the equivalent modern descriptor would be that there are no “ghosts", or haunted houses, or TV's which tip over by their influence —there is only causative electromagnetic field!" (see Edward and Roger McLeod, 2001, America's Stonehenge, (A.S.), As a Prototype For Expected Phenomena At "The" Stonehenge, and Also For Psychophysical Events and Native American "Manitou."). The McLeods also mention this site regarding "Stellar Gravitational Neutrino Interactions (see their 2009 abstract online). The title may sound like real physics, but it seems to be nonsense. They report that neutrino flux from stars and quasars pass through the Earth (up to here it is true) and as they "cannot penetrate these graviton-like strings. They ... project... stick figures within instruments like the Watch House at America’s Stonehenge, and perhaps the chamber beneath the Great Pyramid..." I would have tended to agree with geophysical processes that form lights in the sky (see my posts about earthquake lights), but neutrinos somehow focused by quantum particles in certain ancient structures is beyond science.

Closing comments

I stand by the findings of a serious research article by Feathers et al, 2022 (Luminescence dating of Enigmatic rock structures in New England, USA, Quaternary Geochronology, Nov. 2022, 101402, Vol 73, doi 10.1016/j.quageo.2022.101402): "Enigmatic rock structures in the form of walls, chambers, tunnels, and cairns are common archaeological features in northeastern United States, but the age of their construction is mostly unknown. Debate persists as to whether they are colonial or pre-colonial in age. Luminescence dating ... place their construction in the late 16th century, just before sustained colonial settlement... The evidence suggests a pre-colonial construction, by ancestors of modern native Americans." Clear and simple, nobody came from Phoenicia, Carthage or Ireland, these structures were built by local Native Americans.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

St. Brendan and his Islands... America?

Today's post will leave the realm of genetics and population statistics, which have been the subject of my last series of posts, and return to the Medieval voyages that plied the Atlantic, some by chance, others driven by storms, others to expand Christian faith; today I will write about Saint Brendan.

Saint Brendan

Brendan, who was later known as the Navigator, was born in Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland c.484 AD. His biography and adventures were set down in paper roughly three centuries after his death in a text called Navigate Sancti Brendani Abbatis, (The Voyages of St. Brendan the Abbot).

Brendan was brought up to be a Catholic. Saint Patrick, who contributed to the erradication of the heathen in Eire had died 10 years before Brendan's birth. Brendan entered the cloister, founded a monastery in Clonfert, Ireland (click for map), where he served as abbot.

St. Brendan and the "Living" island. Source

He was eager to expand the faith, and after a monk named Berrind visited Clonfert, his missionary zeal increased. Berrind told Brendan and his monks that he had sailed west in the company of a hermit named Mernocatus in search of the Promised Land of the Saints. They reached "A spacious, grassy, and fertile land.. and resolved to explore it, which we did for about fifteen days, as it seemed to us, without being able to find its ends. We found no plant without flowers nor tree without fruit. The stones there are precious. After the fifteenth day, we came to a river that flowed from the east towards the west. We hesitated about what we should do and finally decided to cross it." But there they met a man who told them not to ford it, that it cut the island in two, and that they should return home. They sailed back to Ireland.

Brendan decided to visit this land, and he chose fourteen monks from his abbey, went west and built a ship. Just as they were going to set sail, they were approached by three strange monks, who asked to go with them. Brendan took them on board, but in a dark omen warned that only two would return home from the voyage. (Source)

The Ship

St. Brendan's men built their vessel as follows: "They then took their tools and built a small boat using wood from the nearby forest, as was the custom in those parts, and covered it with tanned cowhides. They caulked the hides with lard and loaded spare hides, rigging, provisions for forty days, grease, and other necessary utensils. They raised the mast and attached the sails and the necessary rigging for steering the vessel."

The vessel was a traditional Irish Celtic boat known as a curragh or currach. It was very different from a Viking longboat (a ship built with clinker boards (overlapping wood planks), with a sail and oars. The curragh was a wood-frame covered with oak-tanned ox-hides, waterproofed with fat or tar. They had a linnen sail.

Some curraghs had double or even triple hide layers and a wicker structure that was flexible and strong. Some had oars and decks. Counter to what one would expect, they were "Light, seaworthy and extremely manoeuverable they also had an astonishing load capacity." (Source)

The Voyage

The following is a translation from Navigatio fabulosa sancti Brendani ad terram repromissionis scripta est ab ignoto irlandico circa annum 900, it is written in Latin and Spanish.

Azores?

They sailed for 40 days and ran out of food and water, finally they reached an island with sheer cliffs along the coast (As they approached the shore, they noticed it was like a very high wall over which several streams plunged into the sea, flowing down from the highest part of the island. They could find no place to land.") Was it a volcanic island like those of the Azores or Canary Islands? they found an inlet ("They sighted a narrow harbor, large enough for a ship. Saint Brendanus immediately rose, blessing that entrance. It was carved in stone, very high on both sides, like a wall."), and a dog led them to an empty castle where God provided food and water. A monk who stole some silver, and after ejecting an Ethiopian demon that possessed him, died and was buried there. As they left, a young man (Native?) approached them and gave them bread and water for their voyage. The cliffs and inhabitants suggests it was one of the Azores Islands, volcanic, possibly peopled by Norsemen at that time.

Faroes? Shetland? Orkneys?

They then visited the island of white sheep which were larger than oxen (some have identified it with the Faroe Islands) where they met a man, and they celebrated Easter, then they went to a nearby Island, now known as Saint Brendan's Island, which "was rocky without any grass. The forest was rare there and there was no sand on its shore." they celebrated Mass and lit a fire to cook some fish and meat, suddenly, as "the water boiled, the island began to move, like a wave. The brothers ran to the ship.. and resumed their voyage as the island drifted across the ocean. From two miles away, they could still see the fire they had lit on the island burning. Saint Brendanus explained what had happened to them with these words: "Were you amazed at what the island did?... It is not an island where we were, but a fish, the greatest Of those who live in the ocean, always trying to join their head to their tail, something they cannot achieve due to their great size. Their name is 'Iasconius'." This event is depicted in the image further up.

Madeira?

They headed west to the Bird's Paradise Island (insula paradysus avium), where the same man they'd met before gave them supplies (he is later mentioned as the procurator or steward). There, Bendan learned that he and his companions would search seven years before reaching the Promised Land of the Saints. They sail for three months and reach an island (insula Albei) which in a biblical manner they can't land on for another 40 days. They meet a man who takes them to a abbey whose monks had arrived there 80 years ago, the island was named after Saint Ailbe of Emly (or ST. Elvis), an Irish saint and bishop.

Congealed sea? (Sargasso Sea?)

They sailed from there until Lent and reached an island, where they found water, but as they all felt very sleepy and slept for 2 or 3 days, Brendan urged them to leave. Then, "Now, having loaded the ship with all that the man of God had commanded, they set sail and began to sail out into the ocean toward the north. After three days and nights, the wind ceased and the sea began to be as if congealed because of the great calm. The holy father said: "Send the oarsmen into the ship and lower the sails. For wherever God wants to steer her, let him do it." So the ship was carried through various parts of the ocean for about twenty days. After this, God raised up a favorable wind for them from the west toward the east." Was this an encounter with the seaweeds of the Sargasso Sea?

They continued until they reached the same island where the previous year they had met the proucrator (This is the first time the name is mentioned in the text).

They sailed on, and after 40 days saw a gigantic beast that foamed at the mouth producing great waves and moving fast towards them. They prayed for help, and a second flame-throwing beast appeared and collided with the first one, saving them. Then they came to an island, and found the remains of the beast, and ate it. There was a spring too. They stayed there for 3 months as the sea was choppy. They sailed north and came across an island inhabited by three groups, children dressed in white, young adults dressed in violet, and old people in purple who chanted to the Lord. It had dark and white grapes, large, and sweet. They took them on board and sailed awway. On their journey, a gigantic bird flew over them and dropped large grapes, which they ate. Then they came to an island with grapes the size of apples and three springs. They stayed there for 40 days.

After they left, a griphon flew towards them to attack them, but it was intercepted and killed by the bird that had brought them grapes. Then, for Christmas they reached the Island of St. Albes.

Manatees?

They left in Lent, and repeated the cycle, only landing during the Christian festive days. Once, during St. Peter's celebrations, they came to a spot in the ocean where the water was so clear that they could see everything beneath the ship. When they peered over the edge, they saw various kinds of beasts resting on the sandy bottom. The water was so transparent that it seemed they could touch them. They looked like a flock in a meadow, moving in circles" (Were these manatees? If so, they are found in the Caribbean and Florida, USA.

Iceberg

"One day, when they had celebrated mass, a pillar appeared to them in the sea, and it seemed not far from them, but they could not approach it for three days. But when the man of God approached, he looked at its top, but he could not see it at all because of its height. For it was higher than the air. Moreover, it was covered with a rare canopy, which was so rare that a ship could pass through its openings. But they did not know from what creature the canopy itself was made. For it had the color of silver, but yet it seemed harder than marble. The pillar was indeed made of crystal, very clear." Was this an iceberg?

Volcano

They reached an island with forges, and where gigantic men threw chunks of red-hot iron and slag at the boat, this went on all day: "it seemed as if the whole island was burning like one oven, and the sea was boiling like a cauldron full of meat, boiling when it is served by fire, and they heard, for a whole day, a great howl from that island, and even when they could not see it, and the howl of those who lived there reached their ears, and a great stench reached their nostrils." It seems like they encountered a volcano, erupting, this could be in Iceland, or even the volcano on Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, or in the Caribbean, where there there are several active volcanoes: Soufrière Hills (Montserrat), La Soufrièère (St. Vincent), and Mount Pelée (Martinique).

They sailed and met another island, but left after losing a monk there "when they looked back from afar at the island, they saw a mountain covered with smoke, and a flame spewing from itself into the air, and then breathing the same flame back again, so that the whole mountain appeared to be one pyre." Perhaps another volcano.

After six years they reached an island where a hermit named Paul lived, he was an old man, and had arrived there 90 years ago, from a monastery in Ireland. He told them they'd sail and meet their steward*. Which they did, and in his company they reached the island-fish Jasconius and celebrated mass there. Then they reached the Birds' Island, and from there after Pentecost, the steward offered to accompany them and guide them to the land of the Promise of the Saints.

* Note. The Latin name used here is procurator, a noun that derives from the verb prōcūrō which means "to take care of", "manage", or "administer". It was used to nae a manager, agent, steward, overseer, someone who acts on behalf of another person, especially in legal matters (was he an agent of God?).

First they went to the "island of the steward, and he himself with them spent forty days there." Then they set sail again:

"Now their boat was sailing towards the east for forty days. Moreover, their procurator himself went ahead of them. But after forty days had passed, at the approach of evening, a great darkness overtook them, so that one could scarcely see the other. And the procurator said to Saint Brendan: “Do you know what this darkness is?” Saint Brendan said: “What is it?” Then he said, "That darkness has surrounded that island you are looking for for seven years." After the space of an hour, a great light shone around them again, and the ship stood on the shore. And when they came out of the ship, they saw a beautiful land, full of fruit trees, as in the autumn season. And when they had gone around that land, there was no night for them."

"They took only the fruits and drank from the springs. And so for forty days they explored the land and could not find (its end). One day, however, they found a large river flowing through the middle of the island. Then Saint Brendan turned to his brothers and said: "We cannot cross this river and we do not know the size of that land." When they had thought this over, the young man immediately came to meet them, kissing them with great joy and calling each one by name and saying: "Blessed are those who dwell in your house for ever and ever." When he had said this, he said to Saint Brendan: "Behold the land which you have sought for a long time. For this reason you could not find it at once because God wanted to show you his various secrets in the great ocean. Return therefore to the land of your birth, carrying with you as much of the fruits of this island and of the gems as your little boat can carry. For the days of your pilgrimage are approaching, that you may sleep with your fathers. But after many years this land will be declared to your successors when the persecution of Christians has come upon them. This river which you see divides this island."

They gathered fruit, some gems, bid farewell to the young man and the steward and returned home to Ireland. There, he wrote down his adventures and the omen of the young man, and prepared for his coming death. Once he had finished his preparations, he received the sacraments, and passed away c. 570 AD.

Comments

The story of Brendan's voyage is full of religious content, demons, beasts, messages from God, symbols, forty day-spans, seven-year-long voyage (symbolic numbers), and the celebration of Christian festivities. It is embelished and also included an encounter with Judas (I ommitted in the translation further up - it is mentioned in Chapter XXXII).

These events took place 1,500 years ago, they were written 1,100 years ago. We can only speculate where Saint Brendan went, and what he saw. However, the details, like the island of white sheep, volcanos, manatees, Sargasso, islands with rivers (which can only mean an continent, and that can only be America) suggest that there is some truth deeply hidden in this story. It may be based on historic facts. It could be possible that Brendan and his companions reached North America.

An expedition organized by Tim Severin, Irish author and explorer (1940-2020) navigated across the North Atlantic and reached Newfoundland in 1977 in a replica of St. Brendan's ship. Severin proved that the voyage was feasible using early Medieval technology. Below is a picture of this replica of a curragh used by Severin.

Aftermath

There were some attempts to locate these islands, starting in 1130 AD with Honorius of Autun (also known as Honorius Augustodunensis) who in his work Imago Mundi (Image of the World) specifically mentions it: "A certain island in the Ocean called Lost" and adds, "Brandamis is said to have come to this... Another island is that one cannot see how one goes, and never is seen: It is called the Lost Island; That island found Saint Brendan, Who saw many a marvel" (Source).

The Portuguese and Spanish sent several expeditions to find the Island of Sancti Brandani, which was also given similar names, such as: Brendán, Brandain, Barandán, Balandrán, Borondó,;n. The name can even be found in a bay in Argentina's Buenos Aires province, in the River Plate, Samborombón bay, with the Samborombón River flowing into it!

The Alcacovas Treaty signed in 1479 between the kings of Castille and Portugal established that if the island was found, it would become part of the Castillian Crown, as it belonged to the Canarian archipelago.

Some have affirmed that either Americo Vespuccio or Magellan's expedition named the bay in Argentina after San Borondó,n (deformed into Samborombón) because it appeared in maps, now lost, that showed it, or perhaps because they found evidence of the Irish monks on the coast there. (Source)

Among those who set out to find it were Fernando de Viseu, nephew of the Infante Don Enrique el Navegante, the Portuguese prince, Henry the Navigator (1394-1460), who sailed in the late 1400s. Hernando de Troya and Francisco Alvarez, in 1523, from the Canary Islands. In 1530 Hernán Pérez de Grado, Regent of the Royal Audience -highest Court of Law- of the Canary Islands says he visited the island of St. Brendan and lost part of his crew there. Pedro Vello, a Portuguese captain also said he landed on the mysterious island but had to leave it quickly after the wind changed. Fernando Villalobos, from La Palma, Alonso de Espinosa, governor of El Hierro, Gaspar Pérez de Acosta and Lorenzo de Pinedo, set out in 1604.

Dutch navigator, Van Linschoten, noted in 1589 that the people in the Canary Islands believed that St. Brendan's Island was 100 leagues west of their archipelago (500 km or 310 mi.)

None of them pinpointed its location.

I support the idea of an Irish transatlantic voyage c.550. My next post will look into the association between the supposed discovery of Brazil by Sancho Brandão in 1343 (157 years before its "official" discovery date) and St. Brendan.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Inventio Fortunata

In this series of posts I have mentioned the Welsh prince Madoc and his mythical voyages to America, Legendary King Arthur (of Camelot and Knights of the Round Table fame) and his conquest of Iceland (plus a pre-Viking Celtic peopling of Iceland c.550 AD); I also mentioned David Ingram's 2,000 mile trek from Tampico, Mexico to Nova Scotia, Canada, where he saw elephants, gigantic eagles, strange beasts, horses, cattle, sheep, and also Indians that spoke Welsh. Today's post will look into the adventures of an English priest who sailed to the North Pole. All of these myths were used by John Dee to establish the precedence and rights of Elizabethan England over America.

The Franciscan Priest who visited the North Pole in 1360 AD

There is a lost book called Inventio Fortunata which recorded the Polar adventures of a priest in the Middle Ages. It was read by cartographers of the Modern Age who recorded its existence.

First Mention: 1508 AD

It was first mentioned in a marginal note by Johannes Ruysch in his map published in 1508: "It is written in the book of the 'Inventio Fortunata' that there is a very lofty rock of loadstone beneath the Arctic Pole, thirty-three German miles in circuit. Round this flows an indrawing sea, fluid like a vase, pouring water through openings below. About are islands, of which two are inhabited. Huge and broad mountain chains surround these islands, of which twenty-four will not allow of settlement by man." (Source). Loadstone is magnetite, a naturally magnetized mineral.

Second Mention: 1577 AD

This lofty magnetic island was known as Rupes Nigra, Latin words for "Rock" and "Black". As we will see below, Mercator showed it in his map. He also described it in a letter to John Deem written in 1577 (source). Mercator mentions the Franciscan friar and that he visited the Pole in the year 1360 AD.

1606 Mercator Hondius Map of the Arctic (First Map of the North Pole). Source - interactive map

Mercator begins his story describing the Circumpolar area and then he mentions King Arthur!:

"The islands adjacent to the North Pole were formerly called Ciliae (perhaps Thule), and now the Septentrionales
... Part of the army of King Arthur which conquered the Northern Islands and made them subject to him. And we read that nearly 4000 persons entered the indrawing seas who never returned. But in A.D. 1364 eight of these people came to the King’s Court in Norway. Among them were two priests, one of whom had an astrolabe, who was descended in the 5th generation from a Bruxellensis: One, I say: The eight (were sprung from?) those who had penetrated the Northern Regions in the first ships.
That great army of Arthur’s had lain all the winter (of 530 A.D.) in the northern islands of Scotland. And on May 3 a part of it crossed over into Iceland. Then four ships of the aforesaid land had come out of the North. And warned Arthur of the indrawing seas. So that Arthur did not proceed further, but peopled all the Islands between Scotland and Iceland, and - also peopled Grocland. (So it seems the Indrawing Sea only begins beyond Grocland). In this Grocland he found people 23 feet tall, that Is to say of the feet with which land is measured.
When those four ships returned, there were sailors who asserted that they knew where the magnetic lands (?) were."

So we have priests who descended from those who had settled the circumpolar areas during King Arthur's time. The Icelandic ships warned the king about the dangers and he didn't go on, but peopled the Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroe (between Scotland and Iceland) as well as Grocland (inhabited by giants).

The letter continues:

" [Arthur afterwards put on board a fleet of 12 ships about] 1800 men and about 400 women. They sailed north¬ wards on May 3 in the year following that in which the former ships had departed. And of these 12 ships, five were driven on the rocks in a storm, but the rest of them made their way between the high rocks on June 18, which was 44 days after they had set out. (More precisely, perhaps, some of them made their way.)
The priest who had the astrolabe related to the king of Norway that in A.D. 1360 there had come to these Northern Islands an English Minorite from Oxford, who was a good astronomer etc. Leaving the rest of the party, who had come to the Islands, he journeyed further through the whole of the North etc., and put into writing all the wonders of those, and gave the King of England this book, which he called in Latin Inventio Fortunatae, which book began at the last climate, that is to say latitude 54°, continuing to the Pole."

The letter then goes on to describe the islands, and seas, mountains, forests, short-statured people not more than 4 feet tall (1.2 m). Interestingly it tells of previous voyagers: "This Monk said that In two other places further inland he found a great piece of ship’s planking and other balks which had been used in big ships besides many trunks of trees which at some earlier date had been hewn down. So that he could say with certainty that there had formerly been habitation there but the people had now gone." and mentions Brazil trees: "All these four countries are high open lands (i.e. plateaus) except some mountains four fathom [sic] high. There are many trees of Brazil wood." A fathom is 1.8 meters or 6 ft. The text continues:

"In the midst of the four countries is a Whirl-pool... into which there empty these four Indrawing Seas which divide the North. And the water rushes round and descends into the earth just as if one were pouring it through a filter funnel. It is 4 degrees wide on every side of the Pole, that is to say eight degrees altogether. Except that right under the Pole there lies a bare rock in the midst of the Sea. Its circumference is almost 33 French miles*, and it is all of magnetic stone. And is as high as (the clouds?) so the Priest said, who had received the astrolabe from this Minorite in exchange for a Testament. And the Minorite himself had heard that one can see all round it from the Sea: and it is black and glistening. And nothing grows thereon, for there is not so much as a handful of soil on it. That was the writing and words of the Minorite, who has since journeyed to and fro five times for the King of England on business. They are to be found in a book called Inventio Fortunae, of which the Minorite himself was author."

* One French mile was known as a lieue or league, it varied according to the region (That is why the French, during the Revolution created the Metric system). It was equivalent to 2-3 miles or 3.6 to 4.8 km.

The four countries were islands that surrounded the Arctic region, they can be seen in the map below. The sea in this area was said to flow towards the pole (indrawing the water and ships into a vortex that flowed into the Earth). It was so strong, according to the letter, "that no wind can make a ship sail back against it." The Rupes Nigra island was made of magentic rock, a giant magnetic mountain that drew all of the compass needles towards the North (interesting explanation for the then unknown Earth's magnetic field). Minorite was the name given to a member of the Franciscan Order of friars, or Orders of Friors Minor, called so because minor means "lesser" in Latin and St. Francis of Assisi held that his followers should be frateres minores or "lesser brothers", living austere lives like he did.

Nicholas of Lynne

The misterious Minorite is believed to have been Nicholas of Lynne, a Franciscan friar. He was also an astronomer and mathematician who lectured in Oxford in the mid 1300s.

In this work, Hakluyt includes a chapter dedicated to Certaine testimonies concerning king Arthur and his Conquests of the North Regions and includes The voyage of Nicholas de Lynna, a Franciscan Frier, and an excellent Mathematician of Oxford, to all the Regions, situated vnder the North pole, in the yeere 1360 in the raigne of Edward the 3, king of England, the text is in Latin and also translated in the same text into English on p.249. Below is the English version:

"Touching the descriptions of the North parts, I have taken the same out of the voyage of James Cnoyen of Hartzevan Buske, which attegeth certain, conquests of Arthur king of Britaine, and the most part, and chiefest things among the rest he learned of a certain priest in the king of Norway’s court, in the year 1364. This priest was descended (In the fifth generation)’ from them which King Arthur had sent to inbabito these Islands, & he reported in the yeere 1360, a certaine English Frier, a Franciscan, and a Mathematician of Oxford, came into those Islands, who leaving them, & passing further by his magical Arte, described all those places that he sawe, & tooke the height of them with his astrolabe, according to the forme that I have set down in my map, and as I have taken it out of the aforesaid Jacob Cnoyen. He said that those foure Indraughts were drawne into an inwarde gulfe or whirlepoole, with so great a force, that the ships which once entered therin could by no means be driven backe againe, and that there is never in these partes so much wind blowing as might be sufficient to drive a cornmill. Geraldus Cambrensis hath certaine words altogether alike with these."

But John Dee seems to have believed the friar was another Franciscan known as Hugo of Ireland (Source), and Thomas Blundeville wrote in 1589 that he didn't believe that the friar had sailed to the Arctic. (Source): "Moreover the north side of the Promontorie Tabin hath 76 degrees of latitude, which place, whatsoever Plinie saith thereof in his fourth 'Booke of Histories', yet I beleeve that no Roman came ever there to describe the Promontorie. Neither doe I beleeve that the Frier of Oxford by vertue of his art of magike, ever came so nigh the Pole to measure with his astrolabe those cold parts, together with the foure floods, which Mercator and Barnardus doe describe both in the front and also in the nether end of their maps, unlesse he had some cold Deuill out of the middle region of the aire to be his guide. And therefore I take them in mine opinion to be meere fables."

Another option is that the information about the polar regions was collected by Ivar Bárdson who travelled to and from Greenland, starting in 1340, in charge of a see there. He must have had first hand information about the islands, seas, and neighboring Canada. He was in Norway around 1360 and could have met the Oxonian franciscan friar there, sharing his knowledge with him (Source).

Comments

The fantasy of the magnetic mountain island, the whirpools and subducting water at the pole make an amazing tale. The pygmies and giants also add to a story adapted to people who were transitioning from the Middle Ages to the Modern times of the Rennaisance and Humanism

The multiple islands, channels, icebergs and strong currents could portray a vision of North America: the tides along Canada's coast, the Estuary of St. Laurence River, Terranova, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and the dark forests peopled with strange Native Americans would have excited the imagination of Medieval voyagers and chroniclers.

Interestingly the Brazil tree wood used to dye and tint in Medieval Europe appears in these stories, probably sourced from Brazil in South America, but assigned to these unknown Arctic regions.

There may be an ancient true story hidden in these sagas. It is possible that there were voyages of Monks to these northern islands (Greenland, Iceland, Faroe, Shetland and Orkneys) which also originated the myth of Saint Brendan and his mysterious Island. Then there are the Arthurian folkore of conquests of the norther island which may evoke ancient Celtic voyages west towards America.

Further Reading

B. F DeCosta. Inventio Fortunata. ARCTIC EXPLORATION WITH AN ACCOUNT OF Nicholas of Lynn, Read before the American Geographical Society, Chickering Hall, May 15th, 1880. Reprinted from the Bulletin of the Society.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Did King Arthur sail to Iceland and subdue it?

Welsh prince Madoc wasn't the only British royal to sail the Atlantic. Mythical King Arthur also sailed across it and conquered Iceland.

Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1095 – c.1155 AD) in his work History of the Kings of England (see chapter 10, page 158) states that English King Arthur sailed to Iceland. He wrote the following:

"The next summer he fitted out a fleet, and made an expedition into Ireland, which he was desirous to reduce. Upon landing there, he was met by King Guillamurius before mentioned, with a vast number of men, who came with a design to fight him; but at the very beginning of the battle, those naked and unarmed people were miserably routed, and fled to such places as lay open to them for shelter. Guillamurius also in a short time was taken prisoner, and forced to submit; as were also all the other princes of the country after the king's example, being under great consternation at what had happened. After an entire conquest of Ireland, he made a voyage with his fleet to Iceland, which he also subdued. and now a rumor spreading over the rest of the islands, that no country was able to whithstand him, Doldavius, King of Gothland, and Gunfasius, King of the Orkneys, came voluntariliy, and made their submission, on a promise of paying tribute. Then, as soon as Winter was over, he returned back to Britain, where having established the kingdom, he resided in it for twelve years together in peace."

See the same book and quote but translated slightly differently from Latin here.

King Arthur is a mythical figure, probably based on a minor British warlord who fought against the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the late fifth, early sixth centuries AD. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about Merlin, the legendary Excalibur sword, and his wife, Gwinevere. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, he conquered Norway, Iceland, and some regions of France, and created a vast empire. He went to Insula Avalonis (Avalon) to heal a mortal wound, it was also the place where Excalibur was forged. Later additions included Camelot, Lancelot, and the round table.

Arthur is supposed to have lived around 450–550 AD.

If Arthur was a chieftain of the post-Roman Britons who had to defend their territory from the onsalught of Anglo-Saxons, and Jutes from the coasts of what is now Denmark and Northwestern Germany. These Britons were Latinized, Christian Celts who had to fend for themselves after Rome withdrew its last legions in AD 410. They were more civilized than the barbarians that attacked them, but they fared badly as the Germanic tribes settled in eastern England and pushed the locals westwards into Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria and the western Lancashire.

pre-Viking Celts in Iceland c.500 AD?

It is interesting to point out that according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Iceland was inhabited at that time ~450-550 AD.

The official records state that a Viking named Naddodd discovered it by chance ~861 AD (300 to 400 years after the dates given by Geoffrey of Monmouth!) and it was not settled until 874 AD when Arnarson arrived from Norway and established himself in Reykjavik.

There is of course an ancient account about Thule (Iceland) by the Greek explorer and navibator Pytheas of Massalia (~350 BC) who recorded in a book (now lost), On the Ocean his voyages. Scraps of this work were quoted by later writers. So we know from Strabo, about "Thule (which Pytheas says is a six days' sail north of Britain, and is near the frozen sea)" (source, also see footnote). He added that " Now Pytheas of Massilia tells us that Thule, the most northerly of the Britannic Islands, is farthest north, and that there the circle of the summer tropic is the same as the arctic circle.⁠163 But from the other writers I learn nothing on the subject — neither that there exists a certain island by the name of Thule, nor whether the northern regions are inhabitable" (Source).

But what has survived of Pytheas' account does not mention inhabitants in Thule.

Later, Roman scholar Tacitus wrote about General Agricola's conquest of the Orkney Islands, and that his fleet almost reached Thule: "Under Agricola a Roman fleet first navigated the shore of the furthest sea [84 AD], and confirmed Britain as an island, in the same voyage reaching the unexplored islands known as the Orcades and claiming them. Thule was merely sighted, as their orders took them only thus far, and winter was approaching. But they declared the waves sluggish, resistant to the oar, and likewise unresponsive to the wind, presumably because mountainous land, the cause and origin of storms, is scarcer, and the unbroken mass of deeper water is harder to set in motion." (Source)

Pliny the Elder also mentions Thule in his Natural History (source), as well as the the Orkney Islands (see § 4.103), and notes that the British Celts sailed to another island called Mictisis, he also mentions other islands from where people embark for Thule. It surely had inhabitants then (Source) - I have not found any other reference about Mictisis by any other author, ancient or modern. Try searching it in Google!

"The most remote of all that we find mentioned is Thule, in which, as we have previously stated, there is no night at the summer solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer, while on the other hand at the winter solstice there is no day. Some writers are of opinion that this state of things lasts for six whole months together. Timaeus the historian says that an island called Mictisis within six days' sail of Britannia, in which white load is found; and that the Britons sail over to it in boats of osier, covered with sewed hides. There are writers also who make mention of some other islands: Scandia, Dumna, Bergos, and, greater than all, Nerigos, from which persons embark for Thule. At one day's sail from Thule is the frozen ocean, which by some is called the Cronian Sea. "

What was "white load"? Did they use hide-hulled osier boats? Pliny had mentioned them before; they are baskets made with flexible willow shoots (osier) covered with hides, or coracles. Rather flimsy to navigate the North Atlantic. White load is tin: "§ 34.156 [47] The next topic is the nature of lead, of which there are two kinds, black and white. White lead (tin) is the most valuable; the Greeks applied to it the name cassheros, and there was a legendary story of their going to islands of the Atlantic ocean to fetch it and importing it in platted vessels made of osiers and covered with stitched hides. It is now known that it is a product of Lusitania and Gallaecia found in the surface-strata of the ground which is sandy and of a black colour." (source)

There is no tin in Iceland or the Shetlands, Faroe, or Orkneys. The only source of tin other than Cornwall in the Sothwest of Britain, was in Nova Scotia (East Kemptville), it was the largest mine in the world until it closed. (Source).

But, the question is was Iceland inhabited in 450-550 AD, during Arthur's time?

There are written accounts by the Vikings that tell of Irish monks in Iceland when they arrived. For instance (Source): "Islendinga Bok c. 1. «Anciently there lived here Christian folk whom the Norsemen ealled Papar they afterwards went away as they could not endure the society of heathens and they left behind them Irish books bells and pastoral staves so that one could ascertain therefrom that they were Irish». Landnamabok «But before Iceland was peopled by the Norsemen there were folk here who were called by the Norsemen Papar they were Christians and it is thought that they came from the West over the sea for they left behind them Irish books bells and staves and many other articles from which one might conjecture they were West-men.»."

The Irish gaelic monks had established themselves in heathen Ireland starting in 431 with Bishop Palladius and Saint Patrick in 432 AD. Monasteries were built in the sixth-century ~500 AD, by St. Finian, St. Brendan, St. Comgall, St. Kieran, and St. Enda. They probably went north into the Faroe Islands and onwards to Icealand with an escort of Christian Celts ~500 AD (Source).

John Dee and English claims over America

This information was used by John Dee (1527-1608), a well known mathematician, astronomer, cartographer, and scholar of magic and the occult, to promote the English claims over America. He was a favorite of English Queen, Elizabeth I, acting as her adviser and astrologer. He coined the term "British Empire", championed the cause of exploring and claiming North America for England, and was an activist in favor of the Gregorian calendar (which was finally adopted by Britain in 1752).

Spain and Portugal had split the globe between themselves using the meridian that passed through a point 300 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands (Tordesillas Treaty, signed in 1494). Pope Julius II ratified this treaty in 1506. However, other nations like the Dutch and the English ignored it, especially after the break with Rome during the Protestant reformation.

Dee came up with the voyages of Welsh Prince Madoc, and the domination of Iceland and the Norsemen's territory by King Arthur, to set a precedent and legal priority for England's claim to North America, and the territories later occupied by the Vikings (Iceland, Greenland, Vinland, Markland), and the land mentioned by the Zeno brothers (Frisland and Estoitland).

He also used information from an account known as Inventio Fortunata which tells about an English Franciscan friar who was a mathematician at Oxford, who sailed to the North Pole on his own, in 1360 during the reign of Edward III of England. More details on this voyage in a future post.

Since Elizabeth I was a Tudor, and had Welsh roots (The House of Tudor came from the Tudors of Penmynydd, a noble family from Wales), Dee outlined her family tree showing that she was related to Arthur and Madoc!

Dee prepared maps for the English privateers and navigators like John Davis, Francis Drake, Martin Frobisher, Walter Raleigh, and Humphrey Gilbert, below is one of them, a North Pole view of the world, notice the ice-free Arctic Ocean, the magnetic mountain on the pole, and the many channels cutting across North America. Dee was convinced that a northern passage existed between Europe and the Far East. The map below was given by Dee to Gilbert in 1582-83. It can be enlarged by clicking on the source link.

John Dee's map for Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 1582-83. Source (click for interactive map)

For those interested in Dee and his British Empire project, I suggest reading the following paper published in 2024: The Artic Arthur and the American Avalon: John Dee’s Brytanici imperii limites (1578) and the North Atlantic island imaginary, by Stewart, B.; Buskes, G.; Cobben, F.; Geerts, W.; Nolten, M.; Verkoren, J. Leidschrift, 39(Februari (1) Er was eens… Sprookjes, folklore en mythes door de eeuwen heen Sprookjes, folklore en mythes door de eeuwen heen), 33-55. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/1887/4198826.

Avalon in America

It is interesting to note that the southwestern tip of Newfoundland was named Avalon peninsula. Which is no other than the mythical island of King Arthur! This spot was the earliest site of English voyages (by Sebastian Cabot), temporary and later, permanent settlement. By chance it was named with an Arthurian placename.

It was named Avalon by Lord Baltimore, George Calvert, (1580-1632), who received a grant from the Crown to settle there in 1621 (many years after Dee's death), by chance, he chose the name Avalon because it was the land where St. Joseph of Arimathea was said to have landed in his mission to christianize Britain ~63 AD.

Back in 2014 I posted about mtDNA C1e haplogroup found only in Iceland. Amerindians have mtDNA C1b, C1c, and C1d but those who may have met the Vikings in Greenland (Innuit - Eskimo) don't carry it. They are unrelated to the Icleandic variant. mtDNA C1a is found in East Asia, and C1f found at extremely low frequencies in the eastern Baltic area. But neither are associated with the Iceland haplogroup. The options are: C1e has an Eurasian root and reached Iceland with its Viking peopling wave, or it is a Native American variant not yet detected in America. Considering its tree (see Fig. 3 in this paper), with C1e equidistant from C1f and C1d, I opt for an Amerindian variant, one that was thriving ~500 AD when Irish, English, or Scottish people navigated to and from America and Ireland and mixed with the natives, bringing it back to Iceland with them. It survived there and ended up in modern Icelandic people. The original Amerindian clade died out in America during the "Great Dying" after the discovery and conquest starting in 1492. However, C1d is particularly prevalent in South America, and at lower frequencies in Central and North America! (see heatmap here).

My next post will look into another Medieval English Polar explorer who sailed in 1360 to the North Pole.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©