First Person

Illuminated manuscripts still in existence recount an epic voyage by the sixth century saint Brendan from Ireland, west across the seas to an unknown land. These stories were long considered merely apocryphal. But Tim Severin was fascinated by the story they told, and after pain-staking research managed to build a replica of a sixth century curragh, just as the monks of medieval Ireland would have sailed, and set off to cross the Atlantic.

With her small crew, the Brendan survived pack ice, storms and inquisitive whales to eventually reach Newfoundland, and prove that it would have been possible for St Brendan to have done so also, thus reaching the New World almost a millenium before Christopher Columbus.
For copyright reasons this reading is not available as a podcast.

Author: Tim Severin

Reader: Humphrey Bower

Production

Publication

Publisher: Gill and Macmillan