TENERIFE
THE CANARY ISLANDS
        Take a look around to learn more about living and working in the 
Canary Islands. 

The picture is  from the wall of Cabildo Insular, the Tenerife Government in Sta Cruz. Tells 
of the Guanche time and was painted in the 1960s for more paintings go to the history page.

THE GHOST ISLAND: SAN BORONDON.
The Canaries are seven islands... but an eighth isle is still searched for! It is the ghost island, the mysterious one, and the island of San Borond�n. San Borond�n is the Canarian name of Saint Brendan or Saint Brandan of  Clonfert (480-576 A.D.), an Irish monk who plays the lead in one of the most famous legends of the Celtic culture: the voyage of Saint Brendan or Brandan to the Promised Land of the Saints, the Islands of Happiness and Fortune. The Irish poem tells that Brendan was a monk of   Tralee, County Kerry. He was ordained priest in the year 512 A.D. He sailed with 14 other monks on a small vessel which went far away in the Atlantic Ocean. The legend tells about their adventures, how they took with them along their voyage three other monks, their encounter with fire-hurling demons, with floating crystal columns, with monstrous creatures as large as an island.
Brendan and his fellow travelers landed on island where they found trees and other sort of vegetation. They said mass, and suddenly the island started to sail. It was a gigantic sea creature and they were on its back. After many vicissitudes Brendan managed to go back to Ireland.
Many base on this legend the affirmation that Irish sailors reached possibly in the High Middle Ages the shores of North America or Newfoundland, Iceland and other Atlantic isles.
When the Canaries were conquered throughout the 15th century, stories were insistently told about an eighth island which sometimes was seen to the West of La Palma, El Hierro and La Gomera. When sailors tried to reach it and approached to its shores, mountains and valleys, the island was covered by mist and vanished. The island was obviously identified as mythical Saint Brendan's whale-island, and was called "San Borond�n" in the Canary Islands.
Read more about "The Ghost Island" and other folk tales go to the Legends Page.

This Site was last updated on
Sunday, 08 April 2001

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