23.1–4

The Island of the Blacksmiths.  They see an island that is barren, rocky, and coverd with slag.  Brendan is afraid and wants to avoid it, but the wind pushes them closer.  When they come closer they hear bellows working and hammers hitting anvils.  Brendan prays for deliverance.

The episode may reflect an awareness of the volcanos of Iceland.  But it may also reflect the classical literary tradition in which Hephaestus / Vulcan and  blacksmiths in general are associated with volcanos, as well as the story of Odysseus’ encounter with Polyphemus and the other Cyclopes, as told by Vergil (Aeneid 3.613-686; see also 8.416-23).  The Christian tradition sometimes associated volcanos with Hell, or the Gates of Hell, and it may have been from the fourth-century “Vision of St. Paul” that our author learned of Hell as a place of fire, sulfur, and demons.

[1] valdē rūsticam: "very rough, particularly wild."

officīnīs fabrōrum: the “workshops of craftspersons” will turn out to be blacksmiths’ forges.

[2] sibi appropinquāre: CL would be eī appropinquāre.

ventus illūc subtrahit rēctō cursū: the wind was dragging them away (from where they were) to that island (illūc), directly (rēctō cursū).

[3] Circumdabātur illa līmite: = illa (īnsula) circumdabitur līmite. Irish monastic settlements, like the famous one at Skellig Michael, could have defensive walls and ditches.

Ergō: “and so.”

illīs praetereuntibus parumper ... audiērunt: in CL the subject of an ablative absolute should not also be the subject of the main verb.

quasi iactus lapidis: = quasi (spatium) iactus lapidis.

[4] armāvit sē Dominicō trophaeō in quattuor partēs: Brendan “armed himself with the sign of the Lord” by crossing himself four times, in four directions.