Research Catalog

Title

The Brendan voyage / Tim Severin.

Author

Severin, Timothy

Publication

New York : Modern Library, 2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 269 p. : ill., maps; 21 cm.

Summary

Could an Irish monk in the sixth century really have sailed all the way across the Atlantic in a small open boat, thus beating Columbus to the New World by almost a thousand years? Relying on the medieval text of St. Brendan, award-winning adventure writer Tim Severin painstakingly researched and built a boat identical to the leather curragh that carried Brendan on his epic voyage. He found a centuries-old, family-run tannery to prepare the ox hides in the medieval way; he undertook an exhaustive search for skilled harness makers (the only people who would know how to stitch the three-quarter-inch-thick hides together); he located one of the last pieces of Irish-grown timber tall enough to make the mainmast. But his courage and resourcefulness were truly tested on the open seas, including one heart-pounding episode when he and his crew repaired a dangerous tear in the leather hull by hanging over the side--their heads sometimes submerged under the freezing waves--to restitch the leather. A modern classic in the tradition of Kon-Tiki, The Brendan Voyage seamlessly blends high adventure and historical relevance. It has been translated into twenty-seven languages since its original publication in 1978.

Subject

• Brendan (Curragh)
• Voyages and travels

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

ISBN

0375755241

LCCN

^^^99037412^

OCLC

• 41924739
• SCSB-12321372

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library