The Voyage of Mael Duin and dangerous-island traditions

Record summary

Immram Maele Dúin is an Irish voyage narrative in which a seaborne hero encounters a sequence of extraordinary islands, beasts, moral tests, and liminal landscapes. Its structure has been compared with saintly voyages, classical marvel literature, and later maritime exploration narratives. Although not specifically Arctic or Antarctic, the tale supplies a named religious-apocryphal comparator for accounts of remote oceanic journeys and world-boundary encounters. Its manuscript history, dating, and Christianized interpretation are debated, and the narrative should remain within the genre of learned wonder tale.