It is very rare that a canary when he hears about the Island of San Borondón does not know what we are referring toHowever, perhaps not everyone knows where the myth of this magical Island that appears and disappears on the horizon of the Canary Archipelago, specifically between the islands of Tenerife and La Gomera, comes from, according to most of the versions that circulate through the popular heritage. insular, although there are testimonies of people who claimed to have seen it between the islands of El Hierro and La Palma. So where does the myth of the Island of San Borondon?
The history of this mythical island is associated with the story of a monk from the monastery of Clonfert (Brittany) and a very particular protagonist: Brandan (c. 480-576 AD), who would be sanctified after his death. His story would tour the British Isles and make the leap to medieval Europe. This monk, being in the monastery of Clonfert, received a visit from Barinto, an old companion of his habit, who revealed to him the existence of some wonderful islands in the western ocean (Atlantic Ocean).
Brandán was amazed by the story of those islands, so he began to talk to other monks so that they would venture with him on an expedition to those unknown lands. Thus, he convinced 14 monks to build a currah (a simple traditional Irish boat made of wood and leather) and set sail on that unknown ocean. No sails, no rudder, no course. They really didn’t need it. It would be God who would guide themas reported Kevin R. Wittmann.
As Marcos Martínez Hernández, classical philologist and professor of Greek Philology at the Complutense University of Madrid, explains very well, Saint Borondón is “on the one hand a legendary island, since its existence is supposed to him; but, on the other hand, it is also a ghost island, since in reality it has never existed as such; It is also a mythical island, being surrounded by the halo of myth and mystery; but it is also an island-paradise, for being connected with the legend of San Brandán and his search for the island of Promise; it is also one of the floating islands and the whale-island, which are two other reasons associated with the Irish monk’s travels. We are facing a very special type of island that contains within itself an extraordinary wealth of literary topics, very much in keeping with the variety and names with which it is known throughout its historical, geographical and literary tradition: Aprositus, Inaccessible, Covert, Antilia, Non Trubada, Isla de las Siete Ciudades, Encantada, Non Trovata and Isla de San Brandán, which in the Canary Islands becomes San Borondón”, explains the professor.
into an unknown world
Brandán and his companions sailed the Atlantic Ocean for seven years and, as they later recounted, they sighted several wonderful islands: the Bird Islandin which the birds sing psalms and praise God; the island where Judas does his penance or the huge crystal pillar in a sea of fog that takes three days to surround. After this journey in which they also visit other territories, they finally arrive at the place they called the Paradise.
In this place, they were received by Saint Paul the Hermit and after spending some time in this magical place, the group of monks returned to Ireland, where Brandan died some time later being declared a saint.
This story was not known immediately, despite the amazement and the adventures that the monks of Clonfert lived with Brandán at the head, but it was recorded for the first time in the 10th century, in a work entitled Navigatio Sancti Brandani (The Navigation of San Brandán”, becoming a highly appreciated work in the monastic and nobility circuits for a long time.
Nevertheless, That is not the only version of the San Brandán trip: there are more than a hundred manuscripts that relate it with more or less details, with more or less fantasy, with more or less eloquence, but the most important thing is that The story of Saint Brandan’s journey was not only recorded in Latin, the cultured language in Europe at the time, but was also translated into most of the vernacular languages of the Old Continent.
But if the story of San Brandán crossed the walls of the monasteries and feudal castles of the time, it was undoubtedly because of one of the most incredible stories that can be remembered and that reminds us of Jonah. Thus, at a certain point in the journey, San Brandán and his companions landed on an island where they celebrated mass, ate and rested a bit. Perhaps too little, because when the monks began to light a fire, the island began to shake violently, so they got into their small and rustic boat to get to safety.
The monks were really scared but San Brandán then tells them what had really happened: they had not been on an island, but on the back of a giant fish, a whale. The story of San Brandán and the whale-island -which appears and disappears- had enormous diffusion throughout the coming centuries and appeared in various nautical charts and geographical works.
The first map in which the story of Saint Brandan appears is the famous Hereford map (c. 1291)in which, in the lower right corner, next to the Fortunate Islands (Canary Islands)you can read a Latin inscription indicating that the Fortunate are “seven islands, and that are the islands of Saint Brandan”.
The Brandanian Islands: Canary Islands
It is from this moment that the relationship between San Brandán and the Canary Islands begins, islands that had already been visited since ancient times, populated around the 2nd century BC. C. during the Roman occupation of Libya (as the Romans called all of North Africa) and conquered in the fifteenth century (between 1402 and 1496).
The legend is so great that it has reached our days when it is said that there is a mysterious island, in the western part of the Canary Archipelago, that appears and disappears capriciously, and no matter how hard you try, it does not allow you to visit it: the island of San Borondon.
The ebstorf world map, made at the end of the 13th century in the monastery of the German town of the same name, disappeared in a bombing during World War II. In the image above you can see a reproduction of this, in which the mystery of San Borondón is recounted. It is recorded that this island was found by the monk San Brandán, but no one else has managed to find it, much less visit it.
The legend of the island of San Borondón, which appears and disappears, continued to be valid throughout the centuries. Thus, the historian Abreu Galindo, in the 16th century, “described” the exact situation of the island, and there were several official attempts to locate and visit it, but with no success. The island of San Borondón, like the legend, is as attractive as it is capricious. The attraction to the island of San Borondón is as legendary as the voyage of San Brandán across the Atlantic Ocean in the 6th century.
Currently, there are people who claim “for the most sacred” to have seen the mysterious island. There are even people who claim to have documented it in a video that went viral on YouTube in 2008
Myth or Reality? The truth is that this legend is one of the best known in the Canary Islands and in practically all of Europe.
