Breton Legends Part 19

The children slumber sweetly in their curtained beds; the brown dog snores upon the broad hearth-stone; the cows chew the cud behind their screen of broom; and the fading fire-light quivers on the grandsire's old arm-chair.

This is the time, dear friends, when we should make the sign of the cross, and murmur a prayer in secret for the souls of those that we have loved. Hark! midnight is striking from St. Michael's church,--midnight of Holy Pentecost.

This is the hour when all true Christians lay down their heads upon their quiet pillows, content with that which G.o.d has given them, and sleep, lulled by the gentle breathing of their slumbering children.

But as for Perik Skoarn, no little children had he. He was a daring young fellow, but as yet quite solitary. When he saw the gentry from the neighbourhood coming to Ma.s.s on Sundays, he envied them their handsome horses with the silver-plated bridles, their velvet mantles, and their embroidered silken hose. He longed to be as rich as they were, that he also might have a seat covered with red leather in the church, and be able to carry the fair farmers' daughters to the fair seated on his horse's crupper.

This is the reason Perik walked upon Lew-Drez, at the foot of St. Efflam's down, whilst all good Christians slept upon their beds, watched over by the Holy Virgin. Perik is a man hungering after greatness and luxury. The longings of his heart are countless, like the nests of the sea-swallows in the sandy cliffs.

The waves sighed sadly in the dark horizon; the crabs fed silently upon the bodies of the drowned; the wind that whistled in the rocks of Roch-Ellas mimicked the call-cry of the smugglers of Lew-Drez; but Skoarn still paced the sh.o.r.e.

He looked upon the mountain, and recalled the words of the old beggar at Yar Cross. That old man knew all that had happened in these parts, when these our ancient oaks hung yet as acorns on their parent trees, and our oldest ravens still slumbered in the egg.

Now the old beggar of Yar had told him, that here, where now stretch the downs of St. Efflam, a famous city formerly extended; its s.h.i.+ps covered the wide ocean, and it was governed by a king, whose sceptre was a hazel-wand that fas.h.i.+oned every thing according to his wish.

But the king and all his people were punished for their pride and iniquity; for one day, by G.o.d's command, the strand rose upwards like the bubbling of a boiling flood, and so engulfed the guilty city. But every year, upon the night of Pentecost, a pa.s.sage opens through the mountain with the first stroke of twelve o'clock, and shows an entrance to the monarch's palace.

The all-powerful hazel-wand may be discovered hanging in the furthest hall of this magnificent abode; but those who seek it must make haste, for as the final stroke of midnight sounds upon the ear, the pa.s.sage closes once again, to open no more until the following Pentecost.

Skoarn had well remembered all the tale of the old beggar at the Cross of Yar, and for this reason he treads at such unwonted hour the sands of the Lew-Drez.

At length a sharp stroke came das.h.i.+ng from the belfrey of St. Michael. Skoarn trembled; he looked eagerly, by the pale starlight, at the granite ma.s.s which heads the mountain, and beheld it slowly open, like the jaws of an awakening dragon.

Skoarn rushed into the pa.s.sage, which at first seemed dark, but gradually gleamed with a blue light, like that which hovers nightly over church-yard graves; and thus he found his way into a mighty palace, the marble front of which was sculptured like the church of Folgoat or of Quimper-on-the-Odet.

The first hall he entered was all full of chests heaped, like the corn-bins after harvest, with the purest silver; but Perik Skoarn wanted more than silver, and he pa.s.sed it through. The clock sounded the sixth stroke of midnight.

He found a second hall, set round with coffers crammed with gold, as stable-racks are crammed with blossoming gra.s.s in the sweet month of June. But Skoarn wanted something better still, and he went on. The seventh stroke sounded.

The third hall to which he came had baskets flowing over with white pearls, like milk in the broad dairy-pans of Cornouaille in the early spring. Skoarn would gladly have had some of these; but he heard the eighth stroke sounding, and he hurried on.

The fourth hall was all glittering with diamond caskets, shedding brighter light than all the furzy piles upon the hillocks of Douron on St. John's eve. Skoarn was dazzled, and hesitated for a moment; then rushed into the last hall as he heard the church-clock for the ninth time.

But there he stood still suddenly with wondering admiration. In front of the hazel-wand, which hung in full sight at the further end, were ranged a hundred maidens most fair to look upon; they held in one hand wreaths of the green oak, and in the other cups of glowing wine. Skoarn had resisted silver, gold, pearls, and diamonds; but he was overpowered by the vision of these beauteous maidens, and he stood still to gaze at them, and at the sparkling cups they presented to him.

The tenth stroke sounded, and he heard it not; the eleventh, and he still stood motionless. At last, just as he was about to hold out his hand to receive the cup from the maiden next to him, the twelfth was heard, as mournful as the great gun of a s.h.i.+p at wreck among the breakers.

Then Perik, terrified, would fain have turned, but time for him was over. The doors all closed, the hundred fair young girls were now so many granite statues, and all was once more folded up in darkness.

This is the way our fathers tell the tale of Skoarn. You see now what will happen to a youth who suffers his heart too readily to open at seduction's voice. May all the young take warning by his fate. It is well to walk sometimes with eyes cast downwards to the earth, for fear we should be led into the paths of evil and sin.

THE PIPER.

The sea-breeze blew from the sh.o.r.e of the Black Water, and the stars were rising. The young maidens had gone homewards to the little farms, carrying on their fingers the metal rings their friends had bought them at the fair. The youths went across the common, singing their songs. At last their sonorous voices could no more be heard; the light dresses of the damsels were no longer to be seen; it was night.

Nevertheless, here was Lao, with a merry company, at the entrance of the lonely heath,--Lao, the celebrated piper, come expressly from the mountains to lead the dance at the fair of Armor. His face was as red as a March moon, his black locks floated as they would upon the wind, and he held under his arm the pipe whose magic sounds had even set in motion a number of old women in their sabots. When they came to the cross-road of the Warning, where there rises the granite cross all overgrown with moss, the women stopped, and said,

"Let us take the pathway leading towards the sea."

Master Lao pointed out the belfry-tower of Plougean over the hill, and said,

"That is the point we are making for; why not go across the heath?"

The women answered,

"Because there rises a city of Korigans, Lao, in the middle of that heath; and one must be pure from sin to pa.s.s it without danger."

But Lao laughed aloud.

"By heaven!" said he, "I have travelled by night-time all these roads, yet I have never seen your little black men counting their money by moonlight, as they tell us at the chimney-corner. Show me the road leading to the Korigan city, and I will go and sing to them the days of the week." [58]

But the women all exclaimed,

"Don't tempt G.o.d, Lao. G.o.d has put some things in this world of which it is better to be ignorant, and others which we ought to fear. Leave the Korigans alone to dance about their granite dwellings."

"To dance!" cried Lao. "Then the Korigans have pipers too?"

"They have the whistling of the wind across the heath, and the singing of the night-bird."

"Well, then," said the mountaineer, "I am determined that to-day at least they shall have Christian music. I will go across the common playing some of my best Cornouaille airs."

So saying, he put his pipe to his lips, and striking up a cheerful strain, he set off boldly on the little footway that stretched like a white line across the gloomy heath.

The women, terrified, made the sign of the cross, and hurried down the hill.

But Lao walked straight on without fear, and played meanwhile upon his pipes. As he advanced, his heart grew bolder, his breath more powerful, and the music louder. Already had he crossed just half the common, when he saw the Menhir rising like a phantom in the night, and further on, the dwellings of the Korigans.

Then he seemed to hear an ever-rising murmur. At first it was like the trickling of a rill, then like the rus.h.i.+ng of a river, and then the roaring of the sea; and different sounds were mingled in this roar,--sometimes like stifled laughs, then furious hissing, the mutterings of low voices, and the rush of steps upon the withered gra.s.s.

Lao began to breathe less freely, and his restless eyes glanced right and left over the common. It was as if the tufts of heath were moving, all seemed alive and whirling in the gloom, all took the form of hideous dwarfs, and voices were distinctly heard. Suddenly the moon rose, and Lao cried aloud.

To left, to right, behind, before, every where, far as the eye could reach, the common was alive with running Korigans. Lao, bewildered, drew back to the Menhir, against which he leant; but the Korigans saw him, and came round with cries like those of gra.s.shoppers.

"It is the famous piper of Cornouaille come hither to play for the Korigans."

Lao made the sign of the cross; but all the little men surrounded him, and shrieked,

"Thou belongest to us, Lao. Pipe then, thou famous piper, and lead the dance of the Korigans."

Lao in vain resisted, some magic power mastered him; he felt the pipe approach his lips; he played, he danced, in spite of himself. The Korigans surrounded him with circling bands, and every time he would have paused they cried in chorus,

"Pipe, famous piper, pipe, and lead the dance of the Korigans."