Islands of the Blessed

In Greek mythology, lands situated at the western end of the world, near Oceanus (the river believed to encircle the Earth), where heroes and other mortals favoured by the gods were sent to enjoy a life after death, or carried there alive to be endowed with immortality.

Homer identified the Islands of the Blessed with Elysium which later became a separate paradise in Hades, the underworld

Associated myth Several nations believed in a mythical paradise or afterlife in the west. Tradition placed the underworld of the ancient Egyptians, ruled by the goddess Amentet, to the west; and the Babylonians believed in an isle of the blessed encircled by four rivers. In Timaeus and Critias, the Greek philosopher Plato recounted a story told by Egyptian priests, which described the utopian island continent Atlantis. It lay in the western ocean and was overwhelmed by the sea; the surviving islands were called the Fortunate Isles, another term for the Islands of the Blessed. Celtic mythology included King Arthur's Avalon, a fruitful land of youth and health; and the Land of Promise, a magical Otherworld paradise in the west, visited by King Cormac of Ireland and St Brendan, head of a brotherhood of monks at Clonfert, western Ireland, whose legendary voyage in an ox-hide curragh (long-shaped boat) has been interpreted by some as the first European landing in America.