St Brendan, also known as Brendan the Navigator and Brendan of Clonfert, was born in County Kerry, Ireland. The Annals of Inisfallen record his birth as being in the year 486, and he is thought to have died in 575. He is best known through the seafaring tale Navigatio sancti Brendani (The Voyage of St Brendan), which has been preserved in a large number of manuscripts and given rise to a wide variety of vernacular versions. In addition, Vita Brendani / Betha Br nainn (The Life of Brendan) has survived in five Latin manuscript versions and two principal Irish ones. A large number of other...

The Brendan Legend: Texts and Versions deals with the vast textual tradition relating to the Irish Saint Brendan, known as 'The Navigator'. Stories about Brendan have been popular in the whole of Western Europe, from the seventh to the twentieth century. The themes of the book are the interrelated problems of the textual and literary embedding of Brendan texts. For the first time researchers in Celtic, German, Latin and Romance languages and literatures have co-operated on the Brendan tradition, and they have mapped the changes in textual traditions according to different circumstances...