The Persistent, Seductive Myth of a Terrestrial Paradise

From the Isle of the Blessed and Tír na nÓg to Cockaigne and Valinor, the Undying Lands

It is a seductive myth: an earthly paradise; a distant island always out of reach but sometimes visible across the sea to the west, illuminated by the lambent rays of a setting sun. It speaks of a time when the globe was not wholly charted; when the possibility of its existence could be held and sustained. It speaks also of a desire not for some transce…