Description:
<jats:p>No Irish-born Saint played a role in continental Europe's folklore and literature comparable to that of St. Brendan, the Navigator (484–c. 577). To judge by the frequency and provenance of the earliest manuscripts, the <jats:italic>Vita</jats:italic> and <jats:italic>Navigatio</jats:italic>, the two written sources which deal with his life and exploits, the legend was best known in France and Bretagne, Lorraine and Southern Germany. For obvious reasons, the German Low Countries, particularly the shores of the Baltic Sea and the adjacent territories to the north and northwest, were less susceptible to any such distant literary or religious influence. If it is a surprise to find St. Brendan taking so strong a foothold in Southern Germany, far enough removed from his native Kerry, how much more astonishing is it to note traces of his legend evident even in Northern Germany and Prussia proper, an area which only in late medieval centuries began to enter the literary orbit of Western Europe. This area is the one-hundred-mile stretch between the former Hanseatic cities of Lübeck and Stralsund, comprising chiefly Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania, along the shores of the Baltic.</jats:p>