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Fortunate Isles / Isles of the Blessed (Mythology)

The Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blessed[1][2] (Greek: μακάρων νῆσοι, makárōn nêsoi) were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabited by the heroes of Greek mythology. The related idea of Brasil and other islands in Celtic mythology are sometimes conflated with the Greek sense of islands in the western Mediterranean: Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, the Aegadian Islands or other smaller islands of Sicily. Later on the islands were said to lie in the Western Ocean near the encircling River Oceanus; Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores, Cape Verde, Bermuda, and the Lesser Antilles have sometimes been cited as possible matches.

Source: Fortunate Isles – Wikipedia

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2 Comments

  1. Tim B.

    “Pliny the Elder’s Natural History adds to the obligate description—that they “abound in fruit and birds of every kind”—the unexpected detail “These islands, however, are greatly annoyed by the putrefying bodies of monsters, which are constantly thrown up by the sea”. “

  2. Tim B.

    “The name is derived from the Greek words for “islands of the fortunate” (μακάρων νῆσοι, makárōn nêsoi), a term used by Ancient Greek geographers for islands to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Macaronesia is occasionally misspelled “Macronesia” in false analogy with Micronesia, an unrelated Pacific archipelago containing, among other nations, a country of the same name. ”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macaronesia

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