Hittites in America, Pedra do Inga, Brazil

Gabriel D'Anunzio Baraldi (1938-2004) was born in Italy, and moved to Argentina when he was 22. He later relocated to Brazil and later, to Europe. He was known as the "Last Atlantean", having published Os Hititas Americanos — The American Hittites, (1997) and A Descoberta Doc.512 — The Discovery Doc. 512, (1997).

In his first book, he wrote about supposed Hittite inscriptions on a rock in Paraíba, in Brazil, linking them to Atlantis. He also managed to involve extraterrestrials in his theory. His second book dealt with a lost city that he discovered in northern Brazil, called Ingrejil, which he believed was the mysterious "lost" city that Percy Fawcett had been searching for when he vanished in the Mato Groso jungle in 1925. (I will discuss this in my next post).

The Pedra de Inga

The pedra (stone) do Ingá: (of Ingá) is a large rock shaped like a wall, that is 24 m long (75 ft), located in the state of Paraíba, in northeastern Brazil by the town of Ingá (see map). It has 497 inscriptions. Baraldi claimed to have translated these symbols which he says should be read from bottom to top, and from right to left. Baraldi says they are written in the language of the Hittites and this is proof of the arrival of "proto-Hittite" people to America c.1350 BC. He also added that the Tupi language of the Guarani people of South America, is an archaic form of Hittite.

The Hittite civilization flourished in Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, during the Bronze Age (1,650-1,150 BC). They adopted the use of iron earlier than their rivals, the Egyptians and the Assyrians, and built an empire that challenged them. Pharaoh Ramsses II clashed with them, and after the battle of Kadesh in Syria, both powers sought peace (1274 BC). The Hittites are not known for the navigation expertise. They were land-based people. So, how did they reach America?

Pedra do Inga. Source

According to Baraldi, the Atlanteans fled from their island-city of Atlinatis when it was destroyed by a great cataclysm. He says that the stone inscriptions mention the volcanic eruption that covered a city built with stones, on the Atlantic coast, with ash, and that it was very intense, the fleet of the empire was at risk, so the sailors set out to sea to save their ships and the lava nearly burned them. The Atlaneans took refuge in Brazil where they carved the monolith. Only later did they head back east, across the Atlantic and settle in Anatolia, becoming the Hittite empire.

Below is a comparison of Rapa Nui (right) and Ingá (left) symbols (Source), and Hittite inscriptions (c. 1500 BC) (Source).

Of course, andy similarity is coincidential. For instance, I made out some Latin letters an M (row 4), a U (row 4 col.2), a W (row 5), and even a Y (row 8), which goes to show that coincidences exist, and that the human mind loves finding patterns and similarities even if there are none.

Anyway, Baraldi used Laroche's table of Hittite hieroglyphs to decipher the text (for those interested in Laroche's work, you can see the symbols here, online, as Fig. 2)

The stone is made of hard metamorphic rock like granite, and the deep grooves of the symbols (1 cm deep and 3 cm wide - 0.4 and 2.25 in) would have been very hard to carve using stone tools. Some have suggested the use of metallic tools, which the natives lacked. Baraldi said that the inscriptions had been made by using molds pressed into the hot lava that issued from a now extinct volcano, that had been channeled here by the proto-Hittites while it was fluid.

But the rock was never fluid lava running from a crater. Instead it was altered deep inside the Earth, and like most rocks, it extruded, intruded, to the surfaceo (see the image above showing the rock — Source). It is known as biotite-granodiorite, a compact, fine-grained igneous rock with high hardness (Source).

Not an original idea

Baraldi was not the first to imagine a pseudoscientific origin for the stone. Gilvan de Brito wrote a book about it (Journey into the Unknown) Viagem ao desconhecido os segredos da Pedra de Ingá: inclui outros registros rupestres, in 1988. In it, he mentions similarities with Hebrew, Toltec, Hittite, and Rapa Nui symbols, he also imagines it is a calendar and that it involved extraterrestrials. 1994 Zilma Ferreira Pinto suggested that the stones had Muslim, Jewish, and Christian inscriptions. A Kabbalistic stone.

Facts

The rock is the work of local natives, who painstakingly engraved and polished the stone. They probably used iron oxide to stain the symbols (Source). Erosion, and visitor vandalism has erased some of them. The work is probably up to 6,000 years old. No UFOs, no Hittites, no molten lava printing, just plain Native Americans.

Further Reading

Those who want to learn more about the stone can read these two books online (In Portuguese):

• Maria Tereza Santana de Costa Rodrigues Almeida, 2009, A Pedra do Inga: A Reproducao do Mito, A Reproducao da Fe, a thesis with a scientific point of view.
• Vanderley de Brito, 2009, A Pedra do Inga, Itacoatiaras na Paraíba, a serious scholarly review of the stone.

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

Early discovery of Brazil and its relationship with St. Brendan (Brandaõ)

As mentioned in a previous post, Brazil, in South America, was officialy discovered by chance, by the Portuguese navigator Cabral in the year 1500 AD, eight years after Columbus discovered America. However, several authors in the 1800s and 1900s have suggested that the Portuguese knew about Brazil's existence from much earlier, and in an interesting twist it has a link with the story of St. Brendan mentioned in yesterday's post.

In the Historia de la Nación Argentina, Vol 2, p. 355, published in 1936, Max Fleiuss wrote about the discovery of Brazil and included the following comments a letter written by Master John (Maese Juan), to the King of Portugal informing him of the discovery of Brazil, he wrote it in Vera Cruz, an island, where Cabral landed in 1500:

"This letter, dated like that of the scribe of the Calcutta trading post, in Veracruz on May 1, 1500, was found by Varnhagen in the archives of the Torre do Tombo and published in the Revista del Instituto Histórica Brasileira in 1843. The following paragraph perfectly elucidates the question of the prior knowledge that the Portuguese discoverers had of Brazil: «As for the location of this land, Your Highness should order a world map to be drawn, which Pero Vaz Bisagudo has, and in this way Your Highness will be able to see the location of this land.»
That planisphere by Pero Vaz de Cunha, the Bisagudo, is one of the oldest, as Master Juan points out to the king; and it was traced on the "Portuguese Map of the Vatican Secret Archives" of 1343. Emperor Charles V of France ordered it to be reproduced in 1375 by one of the most skilled Spanish cartographers from Majorca and ordered it to be corrected and enlarged according to the explorations made from that year 1343 onwards. A copy of it is now in the National Library of Paris."

Maese Joao is telling the king to look at the map owned by Pero Vaz de Cunha known as The Bisagudo, one of his navigators and officers. Bisagudo as a nickname referred to Pero Vaz de Cunha's shap features, from the Portuguese words viso agudo, acute face. He had been sent by King John II of Portugal to build a fortress in Senegal, Africa, but the mission took a nasty turn involving Pero executing one of his comrades. The Crown never again required his services after this. (Source) another reference says his nickname was due to his cunning and sharp intelligence.

The letter of Maese Joao says that an ancient map from 1343, showed where Brazil was located.

Max Fleiuss then adds that the map was traced from the secret Vatican files, and also copied in 1375 by the French King, Charles V, and that a copy can be found in the French National Library in Paris!

Fleiuss continues (highlight is mine, because Sancho Brandão, is, as we will see further down, linked by his same-sounding name, to St. Brendan).

"On February 12, 1343, during the reign of Alfonso IV, the Valiant, son of King Dinis, in Portugal, he informed Pope Clement VI, in a letter written from Montemayor-el-Novo (Vatican Archives), that Captain Sancho Brandão had reached a land he believed to be an island and that he was taking wild animals, livestock, and brazilwood back to Lisbon, and that he had had it surveyed by several ships. On maps from the 15th and 16th centuries, the legend "Isla de Brandam" [Brandam's Island] is also applied to "Isla del Brasil." [Brazil Island] This island appeared in the Medici Atlas as early as 1351.
Capistrano de Abreu tells us that some medieval maps give the name to a single island, in the shape of a perfectly regular circle... or in the shape of a crescent moon; others give the name to two semicircular islands separated by a strait. In Pisigano's map of 1367, there are three Bracir islands. Nenrod Krestalimer, in his study of medieval maps, found the word Brazil written with the following variants: Brazí, Braciri, Brazil, Brasiel. Brasil, Brazile, Braziele, Braziel, Bracil, Bracill, Bcrsill, Braxil, Braxiili, Braxiel, Braxyiili and Brigilge.
On the map of Charles V [the one mentioned further up, from 1375] and on the world map of Banulph Hyggeden, designed in 1360 (British Museum, London), that island has more or less the same shape as it does on the map of Bisagudo; an island that is still found on the geographical charts of Nicoló Zeno (1380), of Becario (1435) and of André Bianco, original of 1436 and copy of 1448. In the latter, it includes the legend according to which its maritime distance from the Cape Verde archipelago is calculated at 1500 miles, or approximately the distance between Cape Verde and Cape St. Augustine.[more on Bianco's map further down]
In addition, this information appears in Paulo Toscanelli's letter. Furthermore, on Martin Behaim's globe, dated 1487, the "Island of Sancho Brandõo or Brazil" is marked. This astronomer and cartographer from Nuremberg resided for a long time in Lisbon and died there in 1507. Sancho Brandõo, captain of the 1343 expedition, would therefore be, chronologically, the original discoverer of Brazil.
Among the autographs that belonged to Lord Charles Stuart's archive, there was found the letter from Pedro Alvarez to Dom Manuel in which he announced, along with the scribe, the astronomer, and all the ship commanders, the discovery of the Brazilian land. These letters were sent by the vessel under the command of Gaspar de Lemos. Cabral addresses the king in the following passage: «Obeying Your Highness’s instructions, we sailed west, and took possession, with authentic title, of Your Highness’s land, which the ancients called Brandam or Brazil» (Torre do Tombo Archive, Lord Stuart Archive Register).
Renowned authors, such as Luciano Pereira, Faustino da Fonseca, Lopes de Mendonga, Brito Rebello, Jayme Cortezão, Capistrano de Abreu, João Ribeiro, Pandiá Calogeras, Rodolfo García, and the American Henry Vignaud, considered one of Columbus’s best biographers, acknowledge that Duarte Pacheco Pereira was Cabral’s predecessor."

Andrea Bianco's Map

Plenty has been written about Bianco's maps. See this excellent reproduction of the 1436 map (Zoomable), in it, Brazil Island can be seen west of Portugal, at the latitude of Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal, half way across the ocean towards Antillia Island (the map has the text upside down, rotate it to read some of the names). Regarding the 1448 map you can see it here, also zoomable (requires free registration to view). Below is a copy of it, from Fleiuss' article. His original caption is included.

Land located in the Portolan chart of Andrea Bianco (1448), 1500 miles west of Cape Verde Islands.

The map shows Cape Verde (the two points on the right), two islands, Dos Ermanes Islands (Two Brothers? Islands, which probably depict the Cape Verde Islands), and on the lower left side, cut by the end of the parchment is a piece of land, possibly an island, or the coast of some continental area, with a rather illegible text written in ancient Venetian. This text has been interpreted in many different ways, as we will see below

Bianco's Text

Below is a detail of Bianco's 1448 map, showing the text written on the island Source. The upper line gives the name of the island, the bottom line its location.

Fleiuss says the inscriptian reads "Authenticated Island, 1,500 miles away to the west" and asserts that "Portuguese navigators apparently found a land located 1,500 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands—more or less where the South American coast is located—which they later named Authentic Island."

A very interesting online source written by Michael Ferrar reads this text as: "Ixola A(n)tarticha, Xe longo a ponente 1500 mia" and gives it the following interpretation (I summarize his text): While reading Gavin Menzies book ("1421, the year China discovered the world") he read on page 277 that the text «Andrea Bianco’s map of 1448 referred to, “Ixola Otinticha. Xe longa a ponente 1500 mia” with a translation reading “a genuine island is 1500 miles west of here (West Africa)”» Ferrar consulted an expert on ancient Venetian writing who read "Ixola A(n)tarticha. Xe longo a ponente 1500 mia”, that could be translated from Venecian to English as: “The Antarctic Island. It has 1500 miles long to the west”." This expert suggests that the island is a reference to the mythical Antarctic continent or Terra Incognita Australis, legendary like the dos ermanes islands.

An older version, from 1895 (A Pre-Columban Discovery of America, by H. Yule Oldham, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Mar., 1895), pp. 221-233, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773930) shows this same map and refers to the mysterious text as follows: "at the lower edge of the map, south-west from Cape Verde-that is, in the direction of Brazil— there is to be seen a long stretch of coast-line with this singular inscription in the Venetian dialect: "isola otinticha," that is authentic or authenticated island. It is difficult to believe that this can refer to anything but Brazil... Owing to lack of room on the parchment on which the map is drawn, only a corner of this island is shown, on the very edge of the skin, but still much closer to Cape Verde than Brazil actually is. As if, however, to prevent any misconception, the cartographer has added under the words "ixola otinticha" the qualifying statemen, "xe longa a ponente 1500 mia.""

Oldham argues, with a lengthy explanation in the footnote, that "longa" in old Venetian means "distant" and that the text should be interpreted as: "authentic island is distant 1500 miles to the west."

Opposing View

A publication (Um suposto descobrimento do Brasil antes de 1448 —A supposed discovery of Brazil before 1448— by Tomás Oscar Marcondes de Souza in the Revista do Instituto Historico e Geografico de Sao Paulo, vol XLVI, p. 211, 1948, suggests that the idea of a pre-Cabral discovery is a fantasy. Among other things, it analyzes Bianco's map, and includes two images of the relevant text, that we show below, and adds the following comments about these texts.

"While studying the issue related to the discovery of the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago in 1944, we came across, between pages 98 and 99 of the book published by the Ministry of Colonies of the Portuguese Republic, entitled: - "Letters from the islands of Cape Verde, by Vindim Fernandes", by A. Fontoura da Costa, a photographic reproduction of a part of André Bianco's map from 1448, precisely where the much-discussed "Ixola Otinticha" is drawn.
Our surprise was enormous when we verified in this photographic reproduction the existence of another legend, already mentioned by us, on the island under study, with words, partly illegible, but perfectly distinguishable, these final words: "a ponente /500 / mia", which can be verified in the cliché that we publish here." [this is the upper text in the image further up]
As an example, we reproduce here the adulterated legend of "Isla Otinticha" published in volume 1, page XXXII, of "History of the Portuguese Colonization of Brazil". As is easily verified, the falsification consisted of altering the number of miles indicated in the legend of the island in question from 500 to 1500, considering that the real distance between Cape Verde and Cape São Roque in Brazil is approximately 1520 miles." [bottom text in image above]

"

The author concludes: "Thus, the infamous "Ixola Otinticha" from André Bianco's portolan chart of 1448 is perfectly identified with the current island of Santiago, one of the Cape Verde archipelago, and at the same time one of the great proofs that Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese before Columbus's feat and Cabral's voyage to Calicut is annulled."

I took a good look at the map that is shown further up, the original map, Source and it seems that it says 1500, and not 500. But my guess is as good as anyone else's unless the parchment is analyzed in depth (ink samples, etc.). It also seems to say ixola otinticha, which differs from what the expert told Ferrar (Ixola A(n)tarticha).

Saint Brendan and Sancho Brandão

An article published in 1927 (Did St. Brendan Discover Brazil? by Honor Walsh, Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Dec., 1927), pp. 377-384. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44208689.pdf) mentions, that "Brazil has two names; one, "Ilha de Brasil" (Isle of Brasil), the other, "Ilha de Brandao" (Isle of Brendan?) . Both of these names appear in a letter written under date of February 12, 1343, by King Alfonso IV of Portugal, addressed to the Sovereign Pontiff, although Brazil is supposed to have been terra incognita until its "accidental discovery " by Pedro Alvarez Cabral in the year 1500.". It cites its source as a Brazilian journal, Jorno de Brasil, of Rio de Janeiro, authored by Assis Cintra, who places this letter from the king to the Pope in the be in the secret archives of the Vatican, Book 138, folios 148 and 149.

The discoverer according to Cintra was a man called Sancho Brandaõ, which is very similar to the same-sounding San Brandaõ (St. Brendan)! who was "driven westward by a storm until he reached the shore of a magnificent land, rich in timber yielding a red ink or coloring" (now known as Brazil wood).

The text adds that "Annexed to the letter is a map of the land discovered, with the alternative titles, 'Insula de Brasil' and 'Insula de Brandao'. According to the same Brazilian historian, "In 1375, Charles V, King of France, sent to the Vatican a cartographer from Majorca to copy the Portugese map, with orders to correct and amplify the original in accordance with the explorations carried out from 1343 to 1375. This map is in the Iconographical Section of the National Library in Paris (III, 132, s. XVI) and Brasil Island is shown thereon with more or less the same conformation and position as South America." This is the same information provided by Max Fleiuss.

Walsh then explains that Cabral, after discovering what we now call Brazil, named it "Terra da Santa Cruz" (Holy Cross Land). The name then changed to Brazil due to the red-dye wood of that name. However Walsh repeats a theory put forward by Richard Gumfoleton Daunt, that says that the Portuguese believed they had found the country of Ui Breasail, of the Irish legend, discovered by St. Brendan, so "they were not changing the name from Terra da Santa Cruz to that of a kind of wood, but were reverting to the old name. In this way the Brasil wood would get its name from the country, and not the reverse, as is generally believed." The text adds that Ui Brasil or Ui Breasil, is sometimes written as Hy Brasil. In the Irish Celtic mythology it was an island that could be seen in the western ocean for one day every seven years. It was the Island of the Blessed, also known as the Enchanged Island. (Source)

Regarding the red-dye, known as Brazil, I have mentioned it in a post back in 2011 (Phoenicians, red dye, Ophir, the origin of the name Brazil, etc.)

Assis Cintra

The person mentioned by Walsh, Cintra, existed, and he did write about an early discovery of Brazil. He was Francisco Assis Cintra (1887-1937) was a Brazilian historian, journalist, essayist, and I did find the reference to the letter sent by King Alphonso IV to the Pope Clement VI in 1343 in his book Na Margem da Historia (p.123) —On the Margins of History published in 1930, and in his book O Nome Brasil (com “s” ou com “z”) —The name Brazil (with an “s” or a “z”) (p. 184), published in 1920. They are the source of the text that Walsh and Fleiuss mentioned in their works.

There is another source that mentions correspondence between Alfonso IV and the Pope (who at that time lived in Avignon, France, not in Rome), in this book, published in 1872, but it mentions it in the context of the Fortunate Islands (Canary Islands) and not Brazil, however (see p. xiii) it mentions that this expedition whose pilot was a Genoese, Nicoloso de Recco, brought back " red wood which dyed almost as well as the verzino (Brazil wood) although connoisseurs pronounced it not to be the same; the barks of trees to stain with a red colour...

Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by 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 © 

Some Mormon insights on the peopling of America

I read many articles, papers and books, some of them are rigorous science, others are more informal, like blogs or news sites, and others are clearly religious, like the one I will mention today.

I am an atheist. A former Anglican, I turned agnostic and later became a full atheist, but I understand the deep religious need that human beings have, so, as long as religions don't try to impose their beliefs on me (or impose religion as facts -like creationists are trying to do in the U.S.), each and everyone can believe in whatever makes them feel better. Religon plays an important role in people's lives, it brings calm, peace, and soothes in the face of death and tragic events. I have visited many holy sites of different religions, past, and present, around the globe, from China, Taiwan, India, Sri Lanka, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Rome, Vatican, Western Europe, the Americas, and I have to admit that holy sites have a mystical aura about them. Having said this, It is clear that I don't support Mormon beliefs, but those who follow that faith, try to find scientific backing to prove some of its basic premises. In this context, the book Is Decrypting the Genetic Legacy of America’s Indigenous Populations Key to the Historicity of the Book of Mormon? by Ugo A. Perego and Jayne E. Ekinsipsum puts forward some interesting thoughts and hypothesis that are backed by science and stand outside of the "orthodox" viepoint on Amerindian genetics. Below is a short quote from this work (p. 276 and 278).

What would have happened to their DNA after their arrival? A well considered argument comes from Henry C. Harpending, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Utah. When asked, “If a group of, say, fifty Phoenicians (men and women) arrived in the Americas some 2,600 years ago and intermarried with indigenous people, and assuming their descendants fared as well as the larger population through the vicissitudes of disease, famine, and war, would you expect to find genetic evidence of their Phoenician ancestors in the current Native American population? In addition, would their descendants be presumed to have an equal or unequal number of Middle Eastern as Native American haplotypes?
Professor Harpending’s reply was, “I doubt that we would pick up [evidence of the Phoenicians] today at all, but it does depend on how they intermixed once they were here. If they intermixed freely and widely, and if there were several millions of people here in the New World, then the only trace would be an occasional strange stray haplotype. Even if we found such a haplotype we would probably assume it was the result of post-Columbian admixture.”⁴⁰
... From a numerical point of view, the arrival of Lehi and his group would be comparable to a drop of ink in a swimming pool. However, in the swimming pool, although nearly impossible to detect, the actual drop of ink is present. The difficulty in recognizing the drop of ink is determined by the availability of instruments sufficiently sensitive to detect its minuscule presence within the much larger body of water. This analogy does not extend perfectly to DNA and inheritance at the population level. Although the group of Old World migrants was small (a drop of ink), the DNA may have survived (or not) to the present time — due to the forces of genetic drift. If it disappeared, it would be as if someone removed the drop of ink from the swimming pool such that it seemed never to have been there in the first place. Of course, this would be heavily dependent on the level of isolation the Book of Mormon party experienced — something not clearly stated in the narrative."
⁴⁰ Signature Books, http://signaturebooks.com/2010/06/dna-and-thebook-of-mormon (accessed 5 January 2013).

So, small parties if they admixed, would be so diluted that nothing would remain to show they arrived. Perego and Ekinsipsum also mention the "Great Dying" and clearly describe how it contributed to wiping out lineages and leaving no trace of them. This is something I have mentioned many times in this blog (see p. 281, quoted below).

"The arrival of Europeans to the Americas in the fifteenth century was orders of magnitude worse than the combined effect of the Black Plague and the Spanish Influenza on Europeans. The consequences of rapidly reduced population and displacement has forever altered the demographic landscape of pre-Columbian America such that scientists from many disciplines are considerably limited in their ability to draw conclusions about the history, including the genetic history, of the New World. To model such an event, suppose that after an epidemic of smallpox, a hypothetical village of a thousand individuals experienced a ninety percent reduction; the one hundred surviving subjects may or may not include at least one representative of all the original group genetic lineages. Although survival of many diseases also involves a genetic component, Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA variance have little known or no influence at all on the immunity of an individual affected by one of the several diseases Europeans brought to the New World.
With selection playing little or no recognizable role on specific ancestral lines, the drastic population reduction in the hypothetical village inevitably would have affected the number of surviving genetic lineages. Of course, the initial impact with Europeans was so severe that entire tribal groups, particularly on the Atlantic side of the Americas, were completely decimated, leaving no genetic trace of their existence. Native Y chromosomes were quickly replaced by those from the Old World, and mitochondrial DNA variation was greatly reduced."

Interestingly it also addresses the issue of European-like or African-like genes in America, they are always attributed to Post-Columbian events: "If mtDNA lineages are observed in the Americas, even in tribal groups considered deeply indigenous who belong to mtDNA groups known to be African, European, or even Asian, the argument most readily given is that they have been introduced more recently, after the rediscovery of the New World by Europeans" (p.269) and "Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by scientists is to be able to assign clearly and unequivocally any European or African lineage found in the Americas to the pre-Columbian era. The generalized view among population geneticists is that after the initial arrival of Paleo-Indians toward the end of the Last Ice Age, no other migrations took place until the discovery of the double-continent by Europeans in 1492... the common consensus, whenever any DNA is found that does not fit with the classic Native America genetic types, is an automatic assignment of such DNA to the post-Columbian migration wave of European or African migrants." (p. 271-272)

About Lehi and America

Lehi and his people arrive in the promised land (America), painting by Arnold Friberg (See 1 Nephi 18, pages 41–43). Source

For the non-Mormons, the group mentioned in this work as accompanying Lehi were Jews, who were inspired and led by Lehi's father, Nephi, a Hebrew prophet who guided his family and friends from Jerusalem to the land that the Lord promised them in the west (America). This took place c.600 BC when the Babylonians struck Jerusalem. Lehi and his sons built a ship and sailed across the ocean to America, and settled there.

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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 © 

The Welsh discovery of America, the Madoc myth

Online you can find many pages dedicated to a Welsh prince named Madoc, who set sail from Wales roughly one century before his country was conquered by the English, and settled in North America.

I came across an interesting book, that predates these webpages by 150 years: America Discovered by the Welsh in 1170 A.D., by Benjamin H. Bowen (1876).

Google results: Madoc.

It is fun to read, and mentions among other things, the white, bearded indians of Baroa (on page 140) (I have posted about them), von Humboldt's reference to white Indians in the Orinoco region. It describes linguistic links, and stories told by those who settled and explored North America.

There is a also a long epic poem "Madoc" published in 1805 by Robert Southey (1774-1843) that details the mythic voyage from Wales to America, but not to what is now the U.S., but to Mexico, where he met the Aztecs (Aztlan). But is it based on facts?

Lhoyd's History of Wales, 1584

There is a much older written reference about Madoc by David Powel, published in 1584, and it is found in his work The historie of Cambria, now called Wales: a part of the most famous yland of Brytaine, written in the Brytish language aboue two hundreth yeares past: tr. into English by H. Lhoyd... Corrected, augmented, and continued out of records and best approoued authors, by Dauid Powel (see pages 166-167), quoted below.

The book, in its introduction, says that the official Welsh records it mentions were compiled by Caradoc of Lancaruan and later continued until 1270, and conserved in two Welsh abbeys. It was later translated into English by Humffrey Lhoyd (1527-1568). David Powel added onto Lhoyd's work.

The story of Madoc is the following: When the Welsh King Owen Gwyneth died in 1170, his sons and heirs began fighting among themselves for the throne. One of them, Macoc opted out and set sail across the Atlantic to find a new place to settle and reign over. Below is the story of his adventures:

"...Madoc another of Owen Gwyneth his sonnes left the land in contention betwixt his brethren, and prepared certaine ships with men and munition, and sought aduentures by seas, sailing West, and leauing the coast of Ireland so far north, that he came to a land unknowen, where he saw manie strange things. This land must needs be some part of that countrie of which the Spaniardes affirme themselues to be the first finders sith Hannos time; for by reason and order of Cosmographie, this land, to the which Madoc came, must needs be some part of Noua Hispania or Florida. Whereupon it is manifest, that that countrie was long before by Brytaines discovered, afore either Columbus or Americus Vesputius lead anie Spaniards thither. Of the viage and returne of this Madoc there be manie fables fained, as the common people doo vse in distance of place and length of time rather to augment than to diminish: but sure it is, that there he was. And after he had returned home and declared the pleasant and fruitfull countries that he had seene without inhabitants; and vpon the contrarie part, for what barren and wild ground his brethren and nephues did murther one another: he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to liue in quietnes, and taking leaue of his freends tooke his iournie thitherward againe. Therefore it is to be presupposed, that he and his people inhabited part of those countries; for it appeareth by Francis Loues, that in Acusanus and other places, the people honored the crosse: whereby it may be gathered that Christians had beene there, before the comming of the Spaniards. But bicause this people were not manie, they folowed the maners of the land, they came vnto, and vsed the language they found there.

†‡† This Madoc arriuing in that Westerne countrie, vnto the which he came, in the yeare 1170. left most of his people there: and returning backe for more of his owne nation, acquaintance and freends, to inhabite that faire and large countrie: went thither againe with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn Owen. Gutyn Owen. I am of opinion that the land, wherevnto he came, was some part of Mexico: the causes which make me to thinke so be these.

1 The common report of the inhabitants of that countrie, which affirme, that their rulers descended from a strange nation, that came thither from a farre countrie: which thing is confessed by Mutezuma king of that countrie, in his oration made for quieting of his people, at his submission to the king of Castile, Hernando Curteis being then present, which is laid downe in the Spanish Chron cles of the conquest of the West Indies.

2 The Brytish words and names of places, vsed in that countrie euen to this daie, doo argue the same as when they talke togither, they use this word Gwrando, which is, Hearken or listen. Also they haue a certeine bird with a white head, which they call Pengwin, that is, white head. But the Iland of Corroeso, the cape of Bryton, the riuer of Gwyndor, and the white rocke of Pengwyn, which be all Brytish or Welsh words, doo manifestlie shew that it was that countrie which Madoc and his people inhabited."

The footnotes 1 and 2 were taken from Sir George Peckham's true Report of the late discoueries, published in The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. by Richard Hakluyt. See p. 14. (and here, Chapter III)

Context

It has been suggested that this reference to Madoc and America during the Elizabethan period was created to set a precedent and first discovery by the British Welsh people and justify England's colonial pretences in America during Queen Elizabeth the First's time. In 1586 the English established the short-lived English colony of Roanoke Island, in what is now North Carolina, and it failed. However, in 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh named the eastern coast Virgina, in honor of the Queen. Sir Humphrey Gibson claimed Newfoundland for England in 1583. Was Madoc "invented" to justify the English Crown's claim? (see p. 281 in the work quoted above, which uses Madoc to justify these territorial claims.)

Peckham quotes David Ingram, a British sailor who said he walked 2,000 km (3,200 miles) from Tampico in the Gulf of Mexico to Maine - Nova Scotia in 1566-69. He lived among the natives. It was Ingram who mentions the word "Gwrando" a Welsh greeting used by the natives. He also mentions them using the same name to identify penguins. But note that these are not those found in the southern Oceans, but the great auk (Pinguinus impennis), which was known as penguin or garefowl. It was exterminated by the mid-1800s. It is not related to the Southern penguins which were named after them, as they looked very similar (black and white, swimming, flightless birds). The English word "penguin" comes from the Welsh "pen" "gwyn" "white" and "head", respectively. Referring to the auk. Ingram was rescued by a French ship in 1569, in Nova Scotia. His journey was recorded, but that will be the subject of another post.

Other later mentions of Madoc

Madoc Leaving Wales. Source

The image above comes from A Popular History of the United States (p. 66 onwards) by William Bryant and Sydney Gay (1888), which tells about Madoc and of reports from the late 1600s of a pale-skinned Native American tribe speaking a British language in North America. With later reports from the 1770s and 1780s, a tribe called Mandans, who had Welsh traits:

"Among them were in use certain words in which is a resemblance or a fancied resemblance to the old British language. In the manufacture of their pottery and in the making of blue beads they are said to have shown a superiority over the ordinary savage. Mr Catlin believed them to be a cross theory and between the Indians and the Welsh and is inclined to accept a theory favored also by some other writers that the Mandans are the descendants of the Mound Builders and that the builders of those numerous earth works were the people originating in Madoc's Colony. The boat they used Catlin says was more like the coracle of the Welsh than the canoe of other Indians and he asserts that in complexion in the color of their hair and eyes they seemed rather to be allied to the white than the red race"

Closing Comments

Madoc's voyages is an interesting story. But, is it True? It would be hard to find Welsh genes among the surviving Native Americans of the East Coast. They were decimated and expelled from their territories as the European settlers occupied the eastern seabord. Then the Indian Removal Act promoted by President Andrew Jackson and signed by him on May 28, 1830 led to the forced removal of all surviving Native American tribes in the East, to what is now Oklahoma, beyond the Mississippi River.

Did the Welsh bring Old World diseases with them? Did they share their European technology like iron smelting, farming, dogs, horses, or cattle with the natives? If they did, it seems that just as with the Vikings before them, who set up a small settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland c.1000 AD, the Natives didn't adopt the new knowledge, and probably liquidated the settlers, or expelled them.

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

The Legendary Islands of the Atlantic - Babcock (1922)

Just a short Sunday post. Back in 1922 the American Geographic Society published the book Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the North Atlantic by William H. Babcock.

Babcock gives a sound, scientific view on each of these mythical islands, from Atlantis to St. Brendan's, and Brasil to Antilla, and the Seven-Cities Island.

Mayda

The island of Mayda, is a new one for me, and is, according to Babcock, very likely an early reference to America:

"Perhaps Nicolay and Zaltieri were right in thinking that Mayda was America, or at least was on the side of the Atlantic toward America. The latitude generally chosen by the maps would then call for Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, often supposed to be insular in early days; or perhaps for Cape Breton Island, the next salient land feature. But that is an uncertain reliance, for the observations of pre-Columbian navigators would surely be rather haphazard, and they might naturally judge by similarity of climate. This would justify them in supposing that a region really more southerly lay in the latitude of northern France — for example Cape Cod, which juts out conspicuously and is curved and almost insular. Or by going farther south, although nearer Europe, they might thus indicate the Bermudas, the main island of which is given a crescent form on several relatively late maps. But we must not lay too much stress on this last item, for divers other map islands were modeled on this plan. We may be justified, then, in saying that Mayda was probably west of the middle of the Atlantic and that Bermuda, Cape Cod, or Cape Breton is as likely a candidate for identification as we can name."

Original Caption in the book:Fig. 12—Section of the Prunes map of 1553 showing Mayda (in latitude 48°), Brazil, and Estotiland (“Esthlanda”). (After Kretschmer’s hand-copied reproduction.). Babcock

The book mentions Greenland and Markland, reported by the Vikings (who settled the first and visited the second, possibly New England), and the mysterious islands of Estotiland, Frisland, Icaria, and Drogio reported by the Zeno brothers. And also the coins and statue found on Corvo Island in the Azores. The final chapter is devoted to other vanished islands like Buss, Stokafixa, Grocland, Helluland, Daculi, Bra, Saintly Islands, and Islands of Demons.

Antilla

Interestingly, Babcock supports the idea that Antilla was actually the West Indies and America: "Antillia is Cuba; Reylla, Jamaica; Salvagio, or Satanaxio, Florida; I in Mar, one or more of the Bahamas. Early in the fifteenth century some Iberian navigator, probably Portuguese, visited these islands and made the report that resulted in the addition of these islands to divers maps. They, in turn, were among the inciting causes of the undertaking of Columbus."

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

Votan

Continuing with ths subject of my previous post, today I will share smore information on the demigod Votan.

French abbot, Brasseur de Bourbourg, mentions Votan in his work published in 1857-59, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l'Amérique-Centrale : durant les siècles antérieurs a Christophe Colomb Vol. 1 chap. 3

Brasseur de Bourbourg disclosed his sources: "Having been unable to obtain the original documents in the Tzendale language, which record the history of Votan and his successors, we are reduced to collecting the short fragments found scattered in the manuscript works of Ordoùez and Cabrera, and in the Diocesan Constitutions of Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapas, etc. (see footnote 1 on p. 82).

Votan came by Sea

"In accordance with Yucatec traditions, Tzendal historians trace the origins of the famous Votan, whom their commentator believes to be on the island of Cuba, to Valum-Votan several centuries before the Christian era. After sailing along the coasts of the Peninsula, accompanied by other chiefs of his people, he advanced among the thousand islands of the Terminos Lagoon.
... Votan then traveled up the Uzumacinta River, and it is on the banks of one of the tributaries of this great river that the cradle of civilization is placed. His stay there gave birth to a city which, since then, has had the honor of being the metropolis of a great empire. It was situated at the foot of the Tumbala Mountains: the name Nachan, which is attributed to it, is less well known than that of Palenque, whose majestic ruins were revealed, barely a century ago, to the astonished eyes of travelers.
... The astonishment of the Tzendales was perhaps as great then as that which they felt, two thousand years later, at the sight of the Spaniards. For these foreigners had large boats, and wore long and loose clothing, which led to them being given the name "Tzequil", or men in women's skirts, which remained with them in this region; a tradition adds that they spoke the Nahuatl language, and that it was they who brought it to America.The Tzendales welcomed them as brothers, and Votan was rewarded with unique insights they imparted to him concerning divinity and the governance of men. Their settlement in the land was soon followed by an alliance with the Tzendale women. Enlightened and instructed by them, Votan wisely worked to organize the administration of his states; from this time truly dates the foundation of the Palenquean empire.
... Nevertheless, the circumstances of his first voyage, as Ordonez extracted them from the Tzendal histories, are too remarkable not to give them verbatim here: “Votan,” it is said, “wrote a collection on the origin of the Indians and their transmigration to these lands. The main argument of his work is reduced to proving that he descends from Imos, that he is of the race of Chan, the Serpent, and that he originates from Chivim. He was, he says, the first man whom God sent to this region to populate and divide the lands that we call America.” He describes the route he followed and adds that after founding his settlement he made several trips to Valum-Chivim. These trips numbered four: in the first, he recounts that, having left ValumVotan, he took his way towards the "Abode of the Thirteen Serpents." From there, he went to Valum-Chivim, from where he passed to the city where he saw the house of God, which was being built. He then went to the ruins of the ancient edifice, which men had erected, by the command of their common ancestor, so that they might, by this means, reach heaven. He adds that the men with whom he conversed assured him that this edifice was the place from which God had given each family a particular language. He affirms that upon his return from the house of God he went a second time to examine all the underground passages through which he had already passed, and the signs that were found there. He says that he was led through an underground path that went beneath the earth and ended at the root of the heavens: regarding this circumstance, he adds that this path was nothing other than a serpent's hole, into which he entered because he was the Son of the Serpent."

The story continues, with his actions (like introducing the tapir into the region), and travels. There is no hint of a European or Asian origin in this text. The arrival of Votan took place 2000 years before the Spaniards reached Mexico (which took place in the early 1500s) so this happened around 500 BC.

The nonsense of Votan, Babel, and Noah

Brasseur de Bourbourg also translated the Mayan book known as "Popol Vuh" and in his introduction, he mentions Votan once again: "Don Ramon de Ordoñez y Aguiar, canon and provost of the bishopric of Ciudad-Real, otherwise known as San-Cristobal de Chiapas, appears to have been the first to have had knowledge of Ximenez's historical works, and to have used the translation of the Quiche manuscript: he copied this document, altering it from beginning to end, in order to melt it into his indigestible work entitled Historia del cielo y de la tierra, etc., where he tends to establish that Votan, placed as the third sign of the tzendal calendar, was the descendant of the Hivites*, that is to say of the Canaanites, driven out of Palestine by Joshua, and who, having emigrated to the Canaries, would have passed from there to the Antilles. Its main objective was to prove that Quetzalcohuatl was the same as the apostle Saint Thomas, who was said to have been miraculously brought from India to America to preach the Gospel.

* Hivites are a nation mentioned in the Bible in Israel, in Joshua 11:3.

Interestingly Alexander von Humboldt also mentioned Votan and Odin (Vues des Cordilleres, published in 1810) as follows (page 72):

"In the kingdom of Guatimala (sic), the inhabitants of Teochiapan preserved traditions that dated back to the time of a great flood, after which their ancestors, led by a chief named Votan, had come from a land to the north. In the village of Teopixea, descendants of the family of Votan or Vodan (these two names are the same, as the Toltecs and Aztecs did not have the four consonants d, b, l, and s in their languages) still existed in the sixteenth century. Those who have studied the history of the Scandinavian peoples in heroic times must be struck by the discovery in Mexico of a name reminiscent of Vodan or Odin, who reigned among the Scythians, and whose lineage, according to Bede's remarkable assertion, "gave kings to a great number of peoples."
If it were true, as several scholars have supposed, that these same Toltecs, whom a plague combined with a great drought had driven from the Anahuac plateau around the middle of the eleventh century AD, reappeared in South America as founders of the Inca Empire, how could the Peruvians not have abandoned their script to adopt the Toltec hieroglyphic writing? Almost at the same time, at the beginning of the twelfth century, a Greenlandic bishop had brought, not to the continent of America, but to Newfoundland (Vinland), Latin books, perhaps the same ones that the Zeni brothers found there in 1580."

On page 148, von Humboldt again mentions Votan: "We have already drawn our readers' attention above to this Votan or Wodan, an American who appears to be related to the Wods or Odins of the Goths and peoples of Celtic origin. Since, according to the scholarly research of Sir William Jones, Odin and Buddha are probably the same person, it is curious to see the names Boud-var, Wodans-dag (Wednes-day), and Votan designate, in India, Scandinavia, and Mexico, the day of a short period. According to ancient traditions collected by Bishop François Nuñez de la Vega, "the Wodan of the Chiapas people was the grandson of that illustrious old man who, during the great flood in which most of humankind perished, was saved on a raft, he and his family." Then, he mentions the tower of Babel! "Wodan cooperated in the construction of the great edifice that the men undertook to reach heaven: the execution of this audacious project was interrupted; each family was henceforth given a different language, and the great spirit Teotl commanded Wodan to go and populate the land of Anahuac. This American tradition recalls the Menou of the Hindus, the Noah of the Hebrews, and the dispersion of the Cuscbites of Singar."

In his "Historia antigua de Mexico..." Francesco Saverio Clavigero (1731-1787) cites Nuñez de la Vega, bishop of Chiapas, who mentions Votan as moving on after the Babel tower incident (p. 136), and being the first to people Chiapas after the Noachian flood (p. 152).

Even the Mormons took advantage of an "Israelite" Votan to further their religion. You can read an interesting article online here, Votan, the culture hero of the Mayas published in the Juvenile Instructor, Vol. 14, No. 5 (1 March 1879), pp. 57–58.

However, the Middle East connection does not necessarily imply Israelites, it could also involve Phoenicians, which makes more sense.

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