MAELDUIN or MAELDUNE, VOYAGE OF, an early Irish romance. The text exists in an 1 i th-century redaction, by a certain Aed the Fair, the "chief sage of Ireland," but dates back to the 8th century. It belongs to the group of Irish romance, the Navigations (Imrama), resembling the classical tales of the wanderings of Jason, of Ulysses and of Aeneas. Maelduin, the foster-son of an Irish queen, learnt on reaching manhood that he was the son of a nun, and that his father, Ailill of the edge of battle, had been slain by a marauder from Leix. He set sail to seek his father's murderer, taking with him, in accordance with the instructions of a sorcerer, 17 men. His three foster-brothers swam after him, and were taken on board. This increase of the fateful number caused Maelduin's vengeance to be deferred for three years and seven months, until the last of the intruders had perished. The travellers visited many strange islands, and met with a long series of adventures, some of which are familiar from other sources. The Voyage of St. Brendan (q.v.) has very close
similarities with the Maelduin, of which it is possibly a clerical imitation, with the important addition of the whale-island episode, which it has in common with "Sindbad the Sailor." Imram Curaig Mailduin. is preserved, in each case imperfectly, in the Lebor na h Uidre, a ms. in the Royal Irish academy, Dublin; and in the Yellow Book of Lecan, ms. H. 216 in the Trinity college library, Dublin ; fragments are in Harleian ms. 5,28o and Egerton ms. 1,782 in the British Museum. There are translations by Patrick Joyce, Old Celtic Romances (1879), by Whitley Stokes (a more critical version, printed together with the text) in Revue celtique, vols. ix. and x. (1888-89). See H. Zimmer, 'Brendan's Meerfahrt" in Zeitschrift fur deutsch. Altertum., vol. xxxiii. (1889). Tennyson's Voyage of Maeldune includes the framework of the romance.