Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 39

"I have seen the fountain beside which Azenor plucked flowers to make a bouquet for her 'sweet Clerk of Mezlean,'" says the Vicomte Hersart de la Villemarque, "when the Seigneur of Kermorvan pa.s.sed and withered with his glance her happiness and these flowers of love. Mezlean is in ruins, no one remains within its gates, surmounted by a crenellated and machicolated gallery."

There is a subscription at the end of the ballad to the effect that it was written on a round table in the Manor of Henan, near Pont-Aven, by the "bard of the old Seigneur," who dictated it to a damsel. "How comes it," asks Villemarque, "that in the Middle Ages we still find a seigneur of Brittany maintaining a domestic bard?" There is no good reason why a domestic bard should not have been found in the Brittany of medieval times, since such singers of the household were maintained in Ireland and Scotland until a relatively late date--up to the period of the '45 in the case of the latter country.

_St Pol of Leon_

St Pol (or Paul) of Leon (sixth century) was the son of a Welsh prince, and, like so many of the Breton saints, he was a disciple of St Iltud, being also a fellow-student of St Samson and St Gildas. At the age of sixteen he left his home and crossed the sea to Brittany.

In the course of time other young men congregated round him, and he became their superior, receiving holy orders along with twelve companions. Near these young monks dwelt Mark, the King of Vannes, who invited Pol to visit his territory and instruct his people. The Saint went to Vannes and was well received, but after dwelling for some time in that part of the country he felt the need of solitude once more, and entreated the King that he might have permission to depart and that he might be given a bell; "for," as the chronicler tells us, "at that time it was customary for kings to have seven bells rung before they sat down to meat."

The King, however, vexed that Pol should wish to leave him, refused to give him the bell, so the Saint went without it. Before leaving Vannes Pol visited his sister, who lived in solitude with other holy women on a little island, but when the time came for him to depart she wept and entreated him to stay, and the Saint remained with her for another three days. When he was finally taking leave of her, she begged him that as he was "powerful with G.o.d" he would grant her a request, and when Pol asked what it was she desired him to do, she explained that the island on which she dwelt was small "and incommodious for landing"

and requested him to pray to G.o.d that it might be extended a little into the sea, with a "gentle sh.o.r.e." Pol said she had asked what was beyond his power, but suggested that they should pray that her desire might be granted. So they prayed, and the sea began to retreat, "leaving smooth, golden sand where before there had been only stormy waves." All the nuns came to see the miracle which had been wrought, and the sister of St Pol gathered pebbles and laid them round the land newly laid bare, and strewed them down the road that she and her brother had taken. These pebbles grew into tall pillars of rock, and the avenue thus formed is to this day called 'the Road of St Pol.'

Thus do the peasants explain the Druidical circles and avenue on the islet.

After this miracle Pol departed, and rowed to the island of Ouessant, and later he travelled through Brittany, finally settling in the island of Batz, near the small town encompa.s.sed by mud walls which has since borne his name. There he founded a monastery. The island was at that time infested by a dreadful monster, sixty feet long, and we are told how the Saint subdued this dragon. Accompanied by a warrior, he entered its den, tied his stole round its neck, and, giving it to his companion to lead, he followed them, beating the animal with his stick, until they came to the extremity of the island. There he took off the stole and commanded the dragon to fling itself into the sea--an order which the monster immediately obeyed. In the church on the island a stole is preserved which is said to be that of St Pol.

Another story tells us how St Jaoua, nephew of St Pol, had to call in his uncle's aid in taming a wild bull which was devastating his cell.

These incidents remind us of St Efflam's taming of the dragon. St Pol is one of the saints famous for his miraculous power over wild beasts.

The Saint's renown became such that the Breton king made him Archbishop of Leon, giving him special care and control of the city bearing his name. We are told how the Saint found wild bees swarming in a hollow tree, and, gathering the swarm, set them in a hive and taught the people how to get honey. He also found a wild sow with her litter and tamed them. The descendants of this progeny remained at Leon for many generations, and were regarded as royal beasts. Both of these stories are, of course, a picturesque way of saying that St Pol taught the people to cultivate bees and to keep pigs.

St Pol's early desire to possess a bell was curiously granted later, as one day when he was in the company of a Count who ruled the land under King Childebat a fisherman brought the Count a bell which he had picked up on the seash.o.r.e. The Count gave it to St Pol, who smiled and told him how he had longed and waited for years for such a bell. In the cathedral at Saint-Pol-de-Leon is a tiny bell which is said to have belonged to St Pol, and on the days of pardon "its notes still ring out over the heads of the faithful," and are supposed to be efficacious in curing headache or earache.

In the cathedral choir is the tomb of St Pol, where "his skull, an arm-bone, and a finger are encased in a little coffer, for the veneration of the devout." St Pol built the cathedral at Leon, and was its first bishop. Strategy had to be resorted to to secure the see for him. The Count gave Pol a letter to take in person to King Childebat, which stated that he had sent Pol to be ordained bishop and invested with the see of Leon. When the Saint discovered what the letter contained he wept, and implored the King to respect his great disinclination to become a bishop; but Childebat would not listen, and, calling for three bishops, he had him consecrated. The Saint was received with great joy by the people of Leon, and lived among them to a green old age.

In art St Pol is most generally represented with a dragon, and sometimes with a bell, or a cruse of water and a loaf of bread, symbolical of his frugal habits.

_St Ronan_

Of St Ronan there is told a tale of solemn warning to wives addicted to neglecting their children and "seeking their pleasure elsewhere,"

as it is succinctly expressed. St Ronan was an Irish bishop who came to Leon, where he retired into a hermitage in the forest of Nevet.

Grallo, the King of Brittany, was in the habit of visiting him in his cell, listening to his discourses, and putting theological questions to him. The domestic question must have been a problem even in those days, since we find Grallo's Queen, Queban, in charge of her five-year-old daughter. Family cares proving rather irksome, Queban solved the difficulty of her daughter by putting the child into a box, with bread and milk to keep her quiet, while she amused herself with frivolous matters. Unfortunately, this ingeniously improvized _creche_ proved singularly unsuccessful, for the poor little girl choked on a piece of crust, and when the Queen next visited the child she found to her horror that she was dead. Terrified at the fatal result of her neglect, and not daring to confess what had happened, the Queen, being a woman of resource, closed the box and raised a hue and cry to find the girl, who she declared must have strayed.

She rushed in search of her husband to St Ronan's cell, and upbraided the hermit for being the cause of the King's absence. "But for you,"

she declared, "my daughter would not have been lost!" But it was a fatal mistake to accuse the Saint, or to imagine that he could be deceived. Sternly rebuking her, he challenged her with the fact that the child lay dead in a box, with milk and bread beside her! Rising, he left his cell, and, followed by the agitated royal couple, he led the way to where the proof of the Queen's neglect and deceit was found. Small mercy was shown in those days to erring womanhood, and the guilty Queen was instantly "stoned with stones till she died." The Saint completed his share in the matter by casting himself on his knees beside the child, whereupon she was restored to life.

_St Goezenou_

St Goezenou (_circ._ A.D. 675) was a native of Britain whose parents crossed to Brittany and settled near Brest, where the Saint built an oratory and cabin for himself. The legend runs that the prince of the neighbourhood having offered to give him as much land as he could surround with a ditch in one day, the Saint took a fork and dragged it along the ground after him as he walked, in this way enclosing a league and a half of land, the fork as it trailed behind him making a furrow and throwing up an embankment, on a small scale. This story is quite probably a popular tradition, which grew up to explain the origin of old military earthworks in that part of the country, which were afterward utilized by the monks of St Goezenou.

[Ill.u.s.tration: QUEEN QUEBAN STONED TO DEATH]

It is also related of this worthy Saint that he had such a horror of women that he set up a huge menhir to mark the boundary beyond which no female was to pa.s.s under penalty of death. On one occasion a woman, either to test the extent of the Saint's power or from motives of enmity, pushed another woman who was with her past this landmark; but the innocent trespa.s.ser was unhurt and her a.s.sailant fell dead.

On one occasion, we are told, Goezenou asked a farmer's wife for some cream cheeses, but the woman, not wis.h.i.+ng to part with them, declared that she had none. "You speak the truth," said the Saint. "You had some, but if you will now look in your cupboard you will find they have been turned into stone," and when the ungenerous housewife ran to her cupboard she found that this was so! The petrified cheeses were long preserved in the church of Goezenou--being removed during the Revolution, and afterward preserved in the manor of Kergivas.

Goezenou governed his church for twenty-four years, till he met with a violent death. Accompanied by his brother St Magan, he went to Quimperle to see the monastery which St Corbasius was building there, but he began to praise the architecture of his own church, and this so enraged the master builder that he dropped his hammer on the critic's head. To add to the grief of St Magan, St Corbasius endeavoured to appropriate the body of the murdered Saint. He consented, however, to allow St Magan to have such bones as he was able to identify as belonging to his brother, whereupon St Magan prayed all night, and next morning spread a sheet for the bones, which miraculously arranged themselves into an entire skeleton, which the sorrowing Magan was thus enabled to remove.

_St Winwaloe, or Gwenaloe_

St Winwaloe, born about 455, was the son of Fragan, Governor of Leon, who had married a wealthy lady named Gwen. Their son was so beautiful that they named him Gwenaloe, or 'He that is white.' When the lad was about fifteen years old he was given to the care of a holy man, with whom he lived on the islet called Ile-Verte. One day a pirate fleet was sighted off the coast, near the harbour of Guic-sezne, and Winwaloe, who was with his father at the time, is said to have exclaimed, "I see a thousand sails," and to this day a cross which marks the spot is called 'the Cross of the Thousand Sails,' to commemorate the victory which Fragan and his son won over the pirates, who landed but were utterly defeated by the Governor and his retainers. During the fight Winwaloe, "like a second Moses," prayed for victory, and when the victory had been won he entreated his father to put the booty gained to a holy use and to build a monastery on the site of the battle. This was done, and the monastery was called Loc-Christ.

Leaving his master after some years, Winwaloe settled on the island of Sein, but finding that it was exposed to the fury of every gale that blew from the Atlantic he left it and went to Landevennec, on the opposite side of the harbour at Brest. There he established a monastery, gathered round him many disciples, and dwelt there until his death, many years later. He died during the first week of Lent, "after bestowing a kiss of peace on his brethren," and his body is preserved at Montreuil-sur-Mer, his chasuble, alb, and bell being laid in the Jesuit church of St Charles at Antwerp.

In art St Winwaloe is represented vested as an abbot, with staff in one hand and a bell in the other, standing beside the sea, from which fishes arise as if in answer to the sound of his bell.

CHAPTER XIII: COSTUMES AND CUSTOMS OF BRITTANY

Distinctive national costume has to a great extent become a thing of the past in Europe, and for this relinquishment of the picturesque we have doubtless in a measure to thank the exploitation of remote districts as tourist and sporting centres. Brittany, however, has been remarkably faithful to her sartorial traditions, and even to-day in the remoter parts of the west and in distant sea-coast places her men and women have not ceased to express outwardly the strong national and personal individuality of their race. In these districts it is still possible for the traveller to take a sudden, bewildering, and wholly entrancing step back into the past.

In Cornouaille the national costume is more jealously cherished than in any other part of the country, even to the smallest details, for here the men carry a _pen-bas_, or cudgel, which is as much a supplement to their attire and as characteristic of it as the Irish s.h.i.+llelagh is of the traditional Irish dress. Quimper is perhaps second to Cornouaille in fidelity to the old costume, for all the men wear the national habit. On gala days this consists of gaily embroidered and coloured waistcoats, which often bear the travelling tailor's name, and voluminous _bragou-bras_, or breeches of blue or brown, held at the waist with a broad leather belt with a metal buckle and caught in at the knee with ribbons of various hues, the whole set off with black leather leggings and shoes ornamented with silver buckles. A broad-brimmed hat, beneath which the hair falls down sometimes to below the shoulders, finishes a toilet which on weekdays or work-days has to give place to white _bragou-bras_ of tough material, something more sombre in waistcoats, and the ever serviceable sabot.

_Hats and Hymen_

In the vast stretch of the salt-pans of Es...o...b..ac, between Batz and Le Croisic, where the entire population of the district is employed, the workers, or _paludiers_, affect a smock-frock with pockets, linen breeches, gaiters, and shoes all of white, and with this dazzling costume they wear a huge, flapping black hat turned up on one side to form a horn-shaped peak. This peak is very important, as it indicates the state of the wearer, the young bachelor adjusting it with great nicety over the ear, the widower above his forehead, and the married man at the back of his head. On Sundays or gala-days, however, this uniform is discarded in favour of a multicoloured and more distinctive attire, the breeches being of fine cloth, exceedingly full and pleated and finished with ribbons at the knees, the gaiters and white shoes of everyday giving place to white woollen stockings with clocks embroidered on them and shoes of light yellow, while the smock is supplanted by several waistcoats of varying lengths and shades, which are worn one above the other in different coloured tiers, finished at the neck with a turnover muslin collar. The holiday hat is the same, save for a roll of brightly and many tinted chenille.

Several petticoats of pleated cloth, big bibs or plastrons called _pieces_, of the same shade as their dresses, and a shawl with a fringed border, compose the costume of the women. The ap.r.o.ns of the girls are very plain and devoid of pockets, but the older women's are rich in texture and design, some of them being of silk and others even of costly brocade. The women's head-dress is almost grotesque in its originality, the hair being woven into two rolls, swathed round with tape, and wound into a coronet across the head. Over this is drawn tightly a kind of cap, which forms a peak behind and is crossed in front like a handkerchief. Should widowhood overtake a woman she relinquishes this _coiffe_ and shrouds her head and shoulders in a rough black triangular-shaped sheepskin mantle.

The toilette of a bride is as magnificent as the widow's is depressing and dowdy. It consists of three different dresses, the first of white velvet with ap.r.o.n of moire-antique, the second of purple velvet, and the third of cloth of gold with embroidered sleeves, with a _piece_ of the same material. A wide sash, embroidered with gold, is used for looping up all these resplendent skirts in order to reveal the gold clocks which adorn the stockings. These, and all gala costumes, are carefully stored away at the village inn, and may be seen by the traveller sufficiently interested to pay a small fee for the privilege.

_Quaint Head-dresses_

Though the dress of the Granville women does not attempt to equal or rival the magnificence just described, nevertheless it is as quaint and characteristic. They favour a long black or very dark coat, with bordering frills of the same material and shade, and their cap is a sort of _bandeau_, turning up sharply at the ears, and crested by a white handkerchief folded square and laid flat on top.

In Ouessant the peasant women adopt an Italian style of costume, their head-dress, from under which their hair falls loosely, being exactly in almost every detail like that which one a.s.sociates with the women of Italy. The costume of the man from St Pol is, like that of the Granville women, soberer than most others of Brittany. Save for his b.u.t.tons, the buckle on his hat, and the clasps of white metal fastening his leather shoes, his dress, including spencer, waistcoat, trousers, and stockings, is of black, and his hair is worn falling on his shoulders, while he rarely carries the _pen-bas_--an indication, perhaps, of his rather meditative, pious temperament.

At Villecheret the cap of the women is bewilderingly varied and very peculiar. At first sight it appears to consist of several large sheets of stiff white paper, in some cases a sheet of the apparent paper spreading out at either side of the head and having another roll placed across it; in other cases a ridged roof seems to rest upon the hair, a roof with the sides rolling upward and fastened at the top with a frail thread; while a third type of head-dress is of the skull-cap order, from which is suspended two ties quite twenty inches long and eight inches wide, which are doubled back midway and fastened again to the top of the skull-cap. The unmarried woman who adopts this _coiffe_ must wear the ties hanging over the shoulders.

Originality in head-dress the male peasant leaves almost entirely to the woman, for nearly everywhere in Brittany one meets with the long, wide-brimmed, black hat, with a black band, the dullness of which is relieved by a white or blue metal buckle, as large as those usually found on belts. To this rule the Plougastel man is one of the exceptions, wearing a red cap with his trousers and coat of white flannel.

At Muzillac, some miles distant from La Roche-Bernard, the women supplant the white _coiffe_ with a huge black cap resembling the cowl of a friar, while at Pont l'Abbe and along the Bay of Audierne the cap or _bigouden_ is formed of two pieces, the first a species of skull-cap fitting closely over the head and ears, the second a small circular piece of starched linen, shaped into a three-cornered peak, the centre point being embroidered and kept in position by a white tape tie which fastens under the chin. Over the skull-cap the hair is dressed _en chignon_. The dress accompanying this singular _coiffe_ and _coiffure_ has a large yellow _piece_, with sleeves to match. The men wear a number of short coats, one above the other, the shortest and last being trimmed with a fringe, and occasionally ornamented with sentences embroidered in coloured wools round the border, describing the patriotic or personal sentiments of the wearer.

The women of Morlaix are also partial to the tight-fitting _coiffe_.

This consists of five broad folds, forming a base from which a fan-like fall of stiffened calico spreads out from ear to ear, completely shading the nape of the neck and reaching down the back below the shoulders. Many of the women wear calico tippets, while the more elderly affect a sort of mob-cap with turned-up edges, from which to the middle of the head are stretched two wide straps of calico, joined together at the ends with a pin. Most of the youths of Morlaix wear the big, flapping hat, but very often a black cloth cap is also seen. This is ridiculous rather than picturesque, for so long is it that with almost every movement it tips over the wearer's nose. The tunic accompanying either hat or cap is of blue flannel, and over it is worn a black waistcoat. The porters of the market-places wear a sort of smock. The young boys of Morlaix dress very like their elders, and nearly all of them wear the long loose cap, with the difference that a ta.s.selled end dangles down the back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MODERN BRITTANY]

On religious festivals the gala dress is always donned in all vicinities of Brittany, and the costume informs the initiated at once in what capacity the Breton is present. For instance, the _porteuses_, or banner-bearers, of certain saints are dressed in white; others may be more gorgeously or vividly attired in gowns of bright-coloured silk trimmed with gold lace, scarves of silver thread, ap.r.o.ns of gold tissue or brocade, and lace _coiffes_ over caps of gold or silver tissue; while some, though in national gala dress, will have flags or crosses to distinguish them from the more commonplace wors.h.i.+pper.

_Religious Festivals_