Saint Brendan's Island, also known as Saint Brendan's Isle, is a phantom island or mythical island, supposedly situated in the North Atlantic somewhere west of Northern Africa. It is named after Saint Brendan of Clonfert. He and his followers are said to have discovered it while travelling across the ocean and evangelising its islands. It appeared on numerous maps in Christopher Columbus's time, most notably Martin Behaim's Erdapfel of 1492. It is known as La isla de San Borondón and isla de Samborombón in Spanish. The first mention of the island was in the Latin text Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis ("Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot") of the ninth century, which inserted the island into Irish and European folklore. History Middle Ages This island is named after Saint Brendan, who claimed to have landed on it in AD 512 with 14 monks, with whom he celebrated a Mass. The monastic party reported its stay as 15 days, while the ships that expected their return complained that they had to wait a year, during which period the island remained concealed behind a thick curtain of mist. In his Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis, the monk Barino mentioned having visited this same "Paradise" in the Atlantic, it being a thickly wooded, mountainous island where the sun never set and it was always day, where the flora were abundant, the trees bore rich fruit, the rivers ran with fresh water, and the birds sang sweetly in the trees. In Planiferio de Ebstorf of 1234, Marcos Martinez referred to "the lost island discovered by St Brendan[,] but nobody has found it since", and in Mapamundi de Hereford of 1275 the whole archipelago is described as "The Isles of the Blessed and the Island of St Brendan". Early Modern Age The Portuguese writer Luís Perdigão recorded the interest of the King of Portugal after a sea captain informed Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) that he had found the island but was driven off by tumultuous sea conditions. Henry ordered him back: he sailed off but never returned. Christopher Columbus is said to have believed in its existence. In 1520, members of Ferdinand Magellan's expedition are thought to have named Samborombón Bay on the coast of Argentina after Saint Brendan's Isle, attributing the bay's nearly semicircular shape to the detachment of the wandering island from the South American mainland. In 1566, Hernán Pérez de Grado, First Regent of