Brazil (mythical island)
|
|
Brazil, also known as Hy-Brazil or several other variants, is a phantom island which features in many Irish Celtic myths. It was said to be cloaked in mist, except for one day each seven years, when it became visible but could still not be reached. It probably has similar roots to St Brendan's Island. Another basis may be Helluland (probably Labrador), discovered by the Vikings.
Despite the myths surrounding it, belief in the island was so strong that several expeditions left to search for it in the late fifteenth century, the last led by John Cabot. Some claimed to have seen the island, or even landed on it, the last supposed sighting being in 1872. Roderick O’Flaherty in A Chorographical Description of West or H-Iar Connaught (1684) tells us "There is now living, Morogh O'Ley, who immagins he was himself personally on O'Brasil for two days, and saw out of it the iles of Aran, Golamhead, Irrosbeghill, and other places of the west continent he was acquainted with."
On maps, the island was shown as being circular, soon with a central strait or river running east-west across its diameter. Despite the failure of attempts to find it, it appeared regularly on maps lying south west of Galway Bay from 1325 until 1865, by which time it was called Brazil Rock.
Some historians claim that the navigator Pedro Álvares Cabral thought that he had reached this island in 1500, thus naming the country of Brazil. However, Cabral didn't choose the name 'Brazil.' The country was at first named the Island of Vera Cruz, later 'Terra de Santa Cruz' (Land of the Holy Cross) and still later 'Brazil.' The generally accepted theory states that it was renamed for the brazilwood, a plant very valuable in Portuguese commerce and abundant in the newfound land.
The island has also been identified with Terceira in the Azores, which was at one time named Brazil, while another phantom island sometimes known as Brazil was the Isle of Mam.