Note 189 — PART II (continued 3)

Father O’Donoghue points out that the whale episode appears too early in mediæval churches to be due to an imitation of Sinbad. It occurs in a mediæval life of St. Machutus, or Malo, which, however, Father O’Donoghue considers an imitation of St. Brendan, into whose legend the incident entered at a very early period, being mentioned in a poem by St. Cumin, who lived in the seventh century (Brendaniana, pp. 88-91), where the author refers to parallels occurring in the Mediæval Bestiaries. Signer D’Ancona (op. cit.) says that the episode occurs in the Romance of Alexander, which is likely to be the origin of the Western variants. However, the idea is one which may well have presented itself spontaneously in several distinct quarters.