medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> As I remember it all the islands visited by Brendan lies to the west of
> Ireland. One of them, the Island of Smiths, equals the upper Hell. This
> island lies to the north, but still west of Ireland. South of this
> island lies the a cliff where Judas sits during his sunday rest. In the
> seventh year of his journey after Easter or Whitsun Brendan sails
> eastwards to The Saints’ Promised Land.
> So Hell and the promised land are both sort of placed to the west but
> retains their typical northern and eastern locations in relation to
> each other.
Christopher Columbus, on his first voyage across the Atlantic, became convinced
that, as he went further southwest, the level of the ocean was actually rising, and he
concluded that he was going in the direction of Purgatory, which he imagined rising
up like a huge mountain. There is a common misconception that Columbus
believed the earth to be round: he actually describes it as shaped like a woman's
breast, with Purgatory at the nipple. I'll leave any possible Freudian interpretations
to others.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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