The state of the language justifies the attribution of parts of the tale to a much earlier period, probably to the second half of the eighth century. The Irish text has been printed, with a complete English version, by Dr. Whitley Stokes, in the ninth and tenth volumes of the Revue Celtique, and the present re-telling is based upon his version . I have abridged somewhat, mainly by omitting variant episodes which betray the late and interpolated character of the text as it has come down to us.
Parallels.—In the great list of nearly two hundred Irish romances, which is probably as old as the eighth century, "The Voyage of Maelduin" is mentioned as the first of the class of Imrama, or "Oversea Voyages." Six others are mentioned, of which one only, "The Voyage of the O'Corras," has come down to us. But we also possess two Imrama not mentioned in the story list, and probably of later date, "The Voyage of Snegdus and Mac Riagla," and "The Voyage of St. Brendan." These may be described as Christian adaptations of "The Voyage of Maelduin." "The Voyage of St. Brendan," originally written in Latin by an Irish monk and only translated back into Irish in the twelfth century or later, was immensely popular throughout the Middle Ages; and thanks to it, the Irish seamen's legends became part of the literature common to all Western Christendom. As late as the fifteenth century the Isles of the Blessed Brendan were being sought for by adventurous sailors, and Columbus himself was probably influenced by the tale.
Remarks.—Our romance has been most exhaustively studied by Professor Heinrich Zimmer (Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, xxxiii., and Sitzungsberichte der Kgl. Preuss. Ak. d. Wissenschaften, 1891, xvi.). He shows that it is the oldest work of its class extant, and discusses the various themes and episodes which it contains. The Irish, as we know both from classical and native sources, began in the fourth century to sally out of Ireland and harry the lands to the East and Northeast. They even pushed as far as
