St. Brendan and his miraculous food: heavenly meals for a legendary voyage

Between the 9^th and the 10^th century, in an unknown european abbey, an anonymous author wrote about an irish monk and his fourteen companions who, in the 5^th century, embarked for a dangerous voyage. The monk was Brendan, and his destination the Terra repromissionis sanctorum. Therefore, the so called Navigatio Sancti brendani abbatis features real persons in an imaginary world, where credible details and legendary traits mingle with each other. In the age of St. Brendan, Ireland was gradually being christianized and was developing a peculiar attitude: a marked inclination to travelling to remote lands in order to found new monasteries. This is essentially the same propention we find in Brendan, but we can't say such about his target.

The spark came from the abbot of Drumcullen, Barinth, a distant relative of his. Barinth came to visit him and, after a while, bursted into tears. As Brendan started to ask why he was crying, the abbot told him about a wonderful isle, the land God promised to give His saints: a place where there was no hunger, no thirst, no darkness. A tale which convinced Brendan and his friars to put to sea in search of this heavenly Terra...but on empty stomach.

Before leaving, Brendan and his monks decided to fast for forty days, following the archetypal biblical model. They built a wooden boat, they covered it with bovine leather and finally set sail with provisions for forty days. Their estimate will prove to be pretty accurate, even if it surely wasn't due to their cleverness or luck: God, from His invisible outpost, was shepherding them. The moment they run out of food, they caught sight of an island and headed for it.

It took them three days to eventually dock when, at the ninth hour (numbers are not casual, they're biblical), they saw a small bay suitable for anchoring. They were welcomed by a cheerful dog coming from a path, and Brendan immediately recognized the pet as a messenger of God. It led them to a large dwelling where table, chairs and water had been neatly set inside a wide atrium, almost as if the abode itself was waiting for the irish monks. Suddenly, the table got set by itself, and everyone had a white loaf and a fish each.

The next morning, they found the table miraculously set once again: and so, God fed them for three days and three nights.

The monks hadn't yet left the island when a juvenis (a young boy) came to them carrying a basket filled with bread and some water. This voluntary gift from a stranger, which refreshed their stomachs till Easter, won't be an unicum. Sailing through the Ocean, they saw land and went ashore: it was Holy Thursday. On Holy Saturday, a man turned up bringing bread and other provisions. He bowed down do Brendan and gave him some food. He also added that he would bring them more provisions in eight days, since he already knew where they would dock. God was clearly operating by these unknown benefactors.

They finally weighed anchor and, after staying one day on the back of a giant fish named Jasconius (which they initially mistaked for an island), the monks arrived at an isle where birds were singing pslams and praising the Lord. There, once Brendan and his companions had celebrated Easter, the messenger of God showed up again and gave them food and drinks. He told Brendan that those provisions would be more than enough until Whitsunday.

Their protector was of his word. On Pentecost day the venerable man returned and carried necessary food for the celebration. Eight days later, before they set out, he gave them as many provisions as their boat could bear, and eventually he said goodbye to them. They were alone now...weren't they?

About three months later Brendan arrived at the island of St. Albeus. Here, an old man greeted them and led them into a monastery where some monks had them sit at a table. Brendan and his companions were given white loaves and exquisite roots. The abbot of the monastery told the irish strangers that everyday they used to find those miraculous loaves inside their pantry thanks to the mercy of God. A celestial island where men could not get old, nor did they feel cold or heat, and where food was provided by the Lord.

The irish friars slipped moorings after the Epiphany and, at the mercy of winds and currents, they drifted to another island. They had been starving for three days, but they were not forsaken by God. They soon found a limpid spring, many different herbs and roots, and a river alive with fishes. It was instantly clear to them that these foods were gifts from the sky, and that neither on this occasion had the Lord forgotten them.

At a later time, while they were still cutting through the Ocean, Brendan estabilished to hold a three-day fasting (again, a symbolical figure). On the fourth day, God sent them a big bird: it flew over they boat carrying with its beak a branch of an unknown tree from which was hanging a bunch of exceptionally red and ripe grapes. The bird let the branch fall in the lap of Brendan, and the vir Dei shared that heavenly food with his companions. That celestial food filled them for twelve days, and eventually they started a new fast.

Probably, this miracle reminds you of other similar ones told in the Bible, like the manna from heaven or the quails God sent to Moses: Christian culture will perpetuate the memory of these wonders for all the Middle Ages through its saints. Almost at the end of his fabulous adventure, Brendan made landfall at the island of Paul the hermit. The latter told the irish monk that an otter had been bringing a fish and some firewood to him for thirty years, once every three days. He never felt hungry thanks to the Lord, nor thirsty, since every sunday a spring of water used to pour from a rock...just like in the Exodus.

Yes, Brendan and his monks found the Terra repromissionis sanctorum, at last. But the Navigatio contains a deeper message within its pages: God is with His saints whatever obstacle they may be facing. And the most effective kind of help is surely the offer of unlimited food, whether we are talking about a fantastic voyage like that of Brendan, or an allegorical wedding banquet like the one told in Matthew 22:1-14. In other words, the Judaic-Christian culture did not treat food just like something to eat, but rather like a mean of communication. The concept of "unlimited food" was a promise, a projection of the Earthly Paradise, a way to tell people that God would watch over them. This is what I like to call food language, and the adventure of St. Brendan and his companions is an example of its effectiveness.

• Navigatio Sancti Brendani abbatis, in Anonimo del X secolo, La navigazione di San Brandano, ed. by E. Percivaldi, Rimini 2008

• R. A. Bartoli, La Navigatio Sancti Brendani e la sua fortuna nella cultura romanza dell'età di mezzo, Fasano di Brindisi 1993

• D. A. Bray, Allegory in the Navigatio Sancti Brendani, in Viator. Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 26 (1995), pp. 1-10
• A. Brenner, Food and drink in the Biblical Worlds, Atlanta 1999
• T. M. Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland, Cambridge University Press 2000
• A. Maraschi, Un lessico universale. La figura biblica del banchetto di nozze e la sua ricezione nell'alto Medioevo, collana Summer School del Dottorato in Storia, Bologna 2012 (http://amsacta.unibo.it/view/series/Summer_School_del_Dottorato_in_Storia.html)
• S. Boesch Gajano, La tipologia dei miracoli nell’agiografia altomedievale. Qualche riflessione, in Aspetti dell’agiografia nell’alto medioevo, ed. by S. Boesch Gajano, S. Costanza, R. Grégoire, I. Deug-Su, in Schede medievali, 5 (1983)