Hy Brazil, the “phantom island” on maps that mysteriously disappeared in 1872

At least 125 years before Brazil welcomed the first Portuguese; map readers already knew about Brazil long before America was discovered.

However, not as the gigantic country we know today, but as a small ghost island off the coast of Ireland.

For many, the mist-shrouded Brazil Island in the North Atlantic, also known as Hy Brasil, remains a mystery. But for others, it is a cartographic error and an urban legend.

So, beyond the curious debate about its whereabouts, and to summarize, it is certain that Hy Brasil never existed.

The fact is that, despite hovering in marine cartography for centuries, more precise observations, and finally, satellite photography, today eliminate all doubts.

So many will wonder: if the island never existed, why did this ghost island appear on the maps?

BRAZIL ISLAND, UNCERTAIN LOCATION

The first map depicting Hy Brasil was created in 1325 under the name “Brasil”.

Over the years, it would change names – including Brasil, Breasil, Hy-Brasil, or O’Brasil – but the most curious thing about later maps is that they disagreed on its location, IFL Science reports.

Thus, the island was impossible to locate because each report placed it in a different location; it was moved along the coast of Ireland somewhat erratically over the centuries, once appearing off the coast of North America.

FERTILE GROUND FOR GHOST ISLAND FANTASIES

Like many ghost islands, Hy Brasil’s cartographic existence was based on flimsy legends, faulty observations, and wishful thinking.

As Big Think reports, in Celtic legend, the island was almost perpetually shrouded in fog and was only visible for one day every seven years.

Later, in 1497, Spanish diplomat Pedro de Ayala reported on John Cabot, the first European to visit North America since the Vikings in the 11th century, and a trip he had made with “the Bristol men who found Brazil.”

According to the media, Ayala also mentioned in that letter, without real evidence, the “Sete Cidades,” a mysterious set of seven cities supposedly founded in the 8th century on one or more Atlantic islands by Christians fleeing the Muslim conquest of Iberia.

Another account is found in “The voyage of the French traveler M. de La Boullaye Le Gouz through Ireland, in 1644”.

The author says that several sailors have seen the island but never managed to approach it.

On the other hand, another legend tells of a resident of Dublin, called “Captain Rich”, who would have discovered a port but without success.

The most iconic account, however, describes the voyage of Captain John Nisbet, who found himself and his crew stranded in Hy Brasil and set out to explore, as described by IFL Science.

On the first day, they discovered that the island contained an ancient castle yet was completely uninhabited.

Later that night, as they went to sleep, they awoke and “saw an ancient knight, and ten men following him bareheaded approaching the shore, where the ship was.”

HY BRAZIL: NOT SEEN SINCE THE 19TH CENTURY

The last image of Hy Brasil on a map was in 1872. So the leading hypothesis is that there is not, in fact, a ghost island but territories that probably never existed.

And although it is hard to believe, similar cases have occurred in our days, despite today’s technology.

It was the case of Sandy Island, which survived on maps from 1774 to Google Earth. Finally, the place was removed from the portal after a group of researchers declared its non-existence in 2012.

As for the controversy over whether or not the country of Brazil owes its name to the ghost island of Hy Brasil, everything seems to indicate no relationship between the two.

As Gizmodo reports, the name comes from “Ui Breasail”, or “clan of Breasail”, in the language spoken by the ancient Celts, unrelated to the name of the country, which, according to Big Think, was first called Terra de Santa Cruz (“Land of the Holy Cross”).

It came to be called Brazil only after a few decades when its coastal hardwood began to be exploited on a large scale; in Portuguese, it was called pau-brasil, possibly derived from an ancient root meaning “red”.

With information from DW

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