Erland Cooper's Phantom Islands

In 1558, the Venetian senator Nicolò Zeno published a text: 'Dello scoprimento dell'isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engrouelanda, Estotilanda e Icaria fatto sotto il Polo artico da' due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò il K. e M. Antonio' in which the writer claims that as a child he discovered letters and a map from his ancestors, two knights and expert sailors who travelled north to these unknown islands in the north in the late 14th century - but in his youthful ignorance he tore the documents up. Years later, on realising their importance, Nicolò recovered them.

The letters describe a voyage north to Frisland which is decribed as an island larger than Ireland. On Frisland, Nicolò's ancestors encounter a Prince Zichmni - later suggested to be the Earl of Orkney - who had recently defeated the King of Norway. The accompanying navigational chart included islands called Estotiland, Icaria, and Drogeo - which would find their way onto major maps by leading cartographers of the early modern period such as Ortelius and Mercator.

Joining Erland on this imaginary journey to Frisland is Liz Horodowich, Professor of History at New Mexico State University. She also points to some of the personal and political reasons for the publication of Zen's text.

Reading by Keeley Forsyth from Thomas Elyot's The Boke named the Governour (1531)

A voyage to the arctic in search of Frisland and two medieval Venetian knights.

Tonight Orcadian historian and storyteller Tom Muir is our guide to the myth and magic of Hildaland, one of Orkney's vanishing islands and the summer home of the Finfolk.

The Lost Sister - a poem by John Burnside - read by Keeley Forsyth

A late-night adventure to Hildaland - one of Orkney's vanishing islands.

Composer Erland Cooper and storyteller Tom Muir take a late-night voyage to Hildaland - one of Orkney's vanishing islands and the summer home of the Finfolk.

Saint Brendan was an Irish abbot born in the 5th century, known for travelling long distances to found monasteries- he reputedly visited Orkney, Shetland and the Faroes. Several centuries after his death, a Latin text - Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis - appeared which told the story of his extraordinary seven-year voyage across the seas, which culminated in his arrival on the Land of Promise. It was a self-tilling, fruitarian paradise where the weather was always just right, and visitors could find precious stones in abundance.

Painting the picture of this heavenly island is Sebastian Sobecki, Professor of Later Medieval English Literature at the University of Toronto. As a phantom island, St Brendan's Isle or the Fortunate Isles began appearing from the 13th century. One version of the text references the Atlas mountains and they sometimes appeared near the Canary Islands, Madeira and the Azores. Another text mentions that Brendan travelled West from Ireland and so the phantom island began appearing in the North Atlantic near Canada.

Cartographers at the time took Brendan's voyage seriously and it was also used by Dr John Dee to justify Elizabeth I's colonial ambitions in North America - which highlights how phantom islands can also serve a political purpose.

Readings by Keeley Forsyth from Denis O'Donoghue's translation of the Navigatio sancti Brendani abbatis and a 12th-century poem by a Norman-English trouvère.

In search of earthly paradise, we take an imaginary trip to Saint Brendan's Isle.

To explore the Aurora Islands in the South Atlantic - Erland is joined by Chilean historian Natalia Gándara Chacana, an expert on the scientific and cultural history of Latin America in the colonial and early republican period.

The Auroras take their name from a Peruvian ship which reported a group of three Islands in 1762 whilst on a voyage from Lima to Cádiz, midway between the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. South Georgia is about 500 miles from the South Orkney islands - named after Erland's home - which are located at roughly the same latitude south as Orkney is north. They are claimed by both Argentina and Britain.

The Auroras were spotted by numerous more ships including in 1794 by the Spanish corvette Atrevida, which was despatched to find them as part of a scientific survey of the Patagonian coast. In a region where colonial powers were competing for control of the seas, islands held a particular importance and the Auroras had great geostrategic value, in addition to being a potential navigational hazard to ships in one of the most dangerous places to sail. They were dismissed as non-existent by the British admiralty in 1825 but they continued to be sighted and appeared on maps until the 1870s.

Readings by Keeley Forsyth from the journals of the Captain of the Atrevida and the Captain of the Helen Baird

With thanks to Sara Jane Hall

An imaginary journey to the South Atlantic in search of the elusive Aurora islands.

The Isle of Demons - or Île des Démons - was believed to be located at the top of the Straits of Belle Isle which divides Newfoundland and Labrador. It first appeared in 1508 on Johannes Ruysch's world map with the description: 'Demons assaulted ships near these islands, which were avoided, but not without peril. ? It also appeared on other leading cartographers' maps including Gérard Mercator's 1569 world map; Giovanni Battista Ramusio's map of New England and New France in 1556; and Abraham Ortelius' 1569 map.

The phantom island gained notoriety when French noblewoman Marguerite de La Rocque de Roberval claimed to have been abandoned there by her uncle in 1542. After Marguerite's rescue and return to France, her story was told in Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron in 1558, Belleforest's Histoires Tragiques in 1572, and Andre Thevet's Cosmographie Universelle in 1575.

L'Île des Démons is thought perhaps to be based on a real island, most logically the remote Quirpon Island (pronounced Karpoon). Ed English comes from a seafaring family and owns the Quirpon island lighthouse and adjacent Lighthouse Inn, together Ed and Erland explore this ghostly phantom isle. Perhaps the terrifying screams came from the now extinct Great Auk - Erland remembers a stuffed specimen in the Orkney museum in Stromness.

Score by Erland Cooper, recorded at Studio Orphir

Readings by Keeley Forsyth from Marguerite or The Isle of Demons by George Martin (1886)

A late-night voyage to Newfoundland and the mysterious Isle of Demons.

Join Orcadian composer Erland Cooper on a late-night voyage around the Atlantic in search of Phantom Islands.