His name, originally Brénaind, appears under various guises: in medieval Irish, Bréndán; in modern Irish, Brénainn. One of the Latinized forms, Brandanus (hence in English sometimes Brandon), seems influenced by popular etymology (brand, "fire" in Germanic languages).
Brendan died in 577 or 583, on May 16--now celebrated as his feast day.
Brendan's fame was carried by the sailors and pilgrims of western Ireland to the other Celtic countries. As early as about 800, his renown as a navigator was thus established and he became the hero of tales, inspired by pre-existing stories, with which he had nothing to do in actuality. Sometime before 950, a master writer fused all this existing matter into the Navigation of St. Brendan, a Latin composition, artistically blending sailors' yarns and the mystic quest of the Land of Promise with hermitages or monastic communities reflecting the unknown writer's religious and liturgical ideals. In all, some 26 different "adventures" are narrated. Either separately or grafted into a life of the abbot of Clonfert, the Navigation survives in about 100 manuscripts in Latin, besides verse and prose translations in most of the vernacular languages of Europe.
