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Sargasso Sea and other stories
Excerpt from Sargasso Sea and Other Stories
Westward from the Azores and northward from the Canaries, Sargasso Sea lies - "the port of missing ships" - a vast expanse of green islets and islands and continents. Weed shows green like emeralds and rises out of the water like the grass of a meadow trailing to the wind. It might be a newborn continent, or an old, forgotten one, so far does it stretch and so lonely is it. Brendan, the Irish saint and mariner, on his way westward searching for Paradise, returned after ploughing for one day through it. "A barren place it seemed to him," the folk stories say - "without music, without company, without wrestling and mellow ale; a prison for lost souls.
"And this vast meadow of green weed - beneath which lost Atlantis sleeps - was, according to old Punic writers, a great trap set by malign gods jealous of the explorations of men. They spoke of it as drawing the ships of the African mariners into it as by a magnet. Even great galleys, with two banks of oars, could do nothing against it. The men strained and tottered and died at their posts. The galleys lay lifeless and silent, like an old captain's fancy on his green lawn. And then, at first little by little and then faster and faster, great trailing weeds crept over it with the tortuous motions of snakes.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Westward from the Azores and northward from the Canaries, Sargasso Sea lies - "the port of missing ships" - a vast expanse of green islets and islands and continents. Weed shows green like emeralds and rises out of the water like the grass of a meadow trailing to the wind. It might be a newborn continent, or an old, forgotten one, so far does it stretch and so lonely is it. Brendan, the Irish saint and mariner, on his way westward searching for Paradise, returned after ploughing for one day through it. "A barren place it seemed to him," the folk stories say - "without music, without company, without wrestling and mellow ale; a prison for lost souls.
"And this vast meadow of green weed - beneath which lost Atlantis sleeps - was, according to old Punic writers, a great trap set by malign gods jealous of the explorations of men. They spoke of it as drawing the ships of the African mariners into it as by a magnet. Even great galleys, with two banks of oars, could do nothing against it. The men strained and tottered and died at their posts. The galleys lay lifeless and silent, like an old captain's fancy on his green lawn. And then, at first little by little and then faster and faster, great trailing weeds crept over it with the tortuous motions of snakes.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
344 pages, Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1932
About the author
Donn Byrne
174 books10 followersIrish novelist Donn Byrne was born Brian Oswald Patrick Donn-Byrne in New York on 20 November 1889. His Irish parents were on a business trip at the time, so soon after he returned with them to Ireland. He grew up being equally fluent in Irish and English, growing up in an area were Gaelic was still spoken.
He turns up as a singing, fair-haired boy in the annals of Bulmer Hobson's Irish volunteer movement: in 1906, when he was 14, he went to a meeting with Hobson and Robert Lynd of the London Daily News. Lynd wrote of that meeting, mentioning the singing of a little fair haired boy—that is, Donn Byrne. It was through Hobson that Byrne acquired his taste for Irish history and nationalism. In 1907 he went to the University of Dublin to study Romance languages. While at the school he published in The National Student, the student magazine. After graduation he continued his studies in Europe, hoping to join the British Foreign Office. It is related that he "turned down his PhD" when he learned that he would have to wear evening clothes to his early morning examinations, which he apparently felt that no true Irish gentleman would ever do.
Giving up the Service, he returned to New York in 1911, where he began working first for the Catholic Encyclopedia, the New Standard Dictionary, and then the Century Dictionary. In February 1912 his poem "The Piper" appeared in Harper's magazine. His first short story, "Battle," sold soon after to Smart Set magazine for $50.00, appearing in the February 1914 issue. He sold more stories to various magazines. Some of these were anthologized in his first book, Stories Without Women, 1915. then began working on his first novel, The Stranger's Banquet (1919). He was a prolific novelist and short-story writer from this point on; the novel Field of Honor was published posthumously in 1929. His poems were collected into an anthology and published as Poems (1934).
Despite both his wife's success as a playwright, and his own increasing popularity as an author, the family's financial straits forced them to sell up their house in Riverside, Connecticut, and return to Ireland. Eventually the family bought Coolmain Castle near Bandon in County Cork. He lived here until his death in a car accident due to defective steering in June 1928. He is buried in Rathclarin churchyard, near Coolmain Castle. His headstone reads, in Irish and English: "I am in my sleeping and don't waken me."
Source
He turns up as a singing, fair-haired boy in the annals of Bulmer Hobson's Irish volunteer movement: in 1906, when he was 14, he went to a meeting with Hobson and Robert Lynd of the London Daily News. Lynd wrote of that meeting, mentioning the singing of a little fair haired boy—that is, Donn Byrne. It was through Hobson that Byrne acquired his taste for Irish history and nationalism. In 1907 he went to the University of Dublin to study Romance languages. While at the school he published in The National Student, the student magazine. After graduation he continued his studies in Europe, hoping to join the British Foreign Office. It is related that he "turned down his PhD" when he learned that he would have to wear evening clothes to his early morning examinations, which he apparently felt that no true Irish gentleman would ever do.
Giving up the Service, he returned to New York in 1911, where he began working first for the Catholic Encyclopedia, the New Standard Dictionary, and then the Century Dictionary. In February 1912 his poem "The Piper" appeared in Harper's magazine. His first short story, "Battle," sold soon after to Smart Set magazine for $50.00, appearing in the February 1914 issue. He sold more stories to various magazines. Some of these were anthologized in his first book, Stories Without Women, 1915. then began working on his first novel, The Stranger's Banquet (1919). He was a prolific novelist and short-story writer from this point on; the novel Field of Honor was published posthumously in 1929. His poems were collected into an anthology and published as Poems (1934).
Despite both his wife's success as a playwright, and his own increasing popularity as an author, the family's financial straits forced them to sell up their house in Riverside, Connecticut, and return to Ireland. Eventually the family bought Coolmain Castle near Bandon in County Cork. He lived here until his death in a car accident due to defective steering in June 1928. He is buried in Rathclarin churchyard, near Coolmain Castle. His headstone reads, in Irish and English: "I am in my sleeping and don't waken me."
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