The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries Part 20

_Other Breton Fairies._--Besides the various types of _fees_ already described, we find in Luzel's collected stories a few other types of fairy-like beings: in _Les Compagnons_ (The Companions),[81] the _fee_ is a magpie in a forest near Rennes--just as in other Celtic lands, fairies likewise often appear as birds (see our study, pp. 302 ff.); in _La Princesse de l'etoile Brillante_ (The Princess of the Brilliant Star),[81] a princess under the form of a duck plays the part of a fairy (cf. how fairy women took the form of water-fowls in the tale ent.i.tled the _Sick Bed of Cuchulainn_ (see our study, p. 345); in _Pipi Menou et les Femmes Volantes_ (Pipi Menou and the Flying Women),[81] there are fairy women as swan-maidens; and then there are yet to be mentioned _Les Morgans de l'ile d'Ouessant_ (The _Morgans_ of the Isle of Ushant), who live under the sea in rare palaces where mortals whom they love and marry are able to exist with them. In some legends of the _Morgans_, like one recorded by Luzel, the men and women of this water-fairy race, or the _Morgans_ and _Morganezed_, seem like anthropomorphosed survivals of ancient sea-divinities, such, for example, as the sea-G.o.d called _Shony_, to whom the people of Lewis, Western Hebrides, still pour libations that he may send in sea-weed, and the sea-G.o.d to whom anciently the people of Iona poured libations.[82]

_The 'Morgan'._--To M. J. Cuillandre (Glanmor), President of the _Federation des etudiants Bretons_, I am indebted for the following weird legend of the _Morgan_, as it is told among the Breton fisher-folk on the ile Molene, Finistere:--'Following a legend which I have collected on the ile Molene, the _Morgan_ is a fairy eternally young, a virgin seductress whose pa.s.sion, never satisfied, drives her to despair.

Her place of abode is beneath the sea; there she possesses marvellous palaces where gold and diamonds glimmer. Accompanied by other fairies, of whom she is in some respects the queen, she rises to the surface of the waters in the splendour of her unveiled beauty. By day she slumbers amid the coolness of grottoes, and woe to him who troubles her sleep. By night she lets herself be lulled by the waves in the neighbourhood of the rocks. The sea-foam crystallizes at her touch into precious stones, of whiteness as dazzling as that of her body. By moonlight she moans as she combs her fair hair with a comb of fine gold, and she sings in a harmonious voice a plaintive melody whose charm is irresistible. The sailor who listens to it feels himself drawn toward her, without power to break the charm which drags him onward to his destruction; the bark is broken upon the reefs: the man is in the sea, and the _Morgan_ utters a cry of joy. But the arms of the fairy clasp only a corpse; for at her touch men die, and it is this which causes the despair of the amorous and inviolate _Morgan_. She being pagan, it suffices to have been touched by her in order to suffer the saddest fate which can be reserved to a Christian. The unfortunate one whom she had clasped is condemned to wander for ever in the trough of the waters, his eyes wide open, the mark of baptism effaced from his forehead. Never will his poor remains know the sweetness of reposing in holy ground, never will he have a tomb where his kindred might come to pray and to weep.'

_Origin of the 'Morgan'._--The following legendary origin is attributed to the _Morgan_ by M. Goulven Le Scour, our Carnac witness:--'Following the old people and the Breton legends, the _Morgan_ (_Mari Morgan_ in Breton) was Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the city of Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night the bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his neck the cord which held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates, and had given this key to the Black Prince, under whose evil love she had fallen, and who, according to belief, was no other than the Devil, St. Guenole soon afterwards began to cry aloud, "Great King, arise! The flood-gates are open, and the sea is no longer restrained!"[83] Suddenly the old King Gradlon arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing from the city with St.

Guenole, when he encountered his own daughter amid the waves. She piteously begged aid of her father, and he took her up behind him on the horse; but St. Guenole, seeing that the waters were gaining on them, said to the king, "Throw into the sea the demon you have behind you, and we shall be saved!" Thereupon Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss, and he and St. Guenole were saved. Since that time, the fishermen declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear moonlight, Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the rocks combing her fair hair and singing, in the place where her father flung her. And to-day there is recognized under the Breton name _Marie Morgan_, the daughter who sings amid the sea.'

_Breton Fairyland Legends._--In a legend concerning Mona and the king of the _Morgans_, much like the Christabel story of English poets, we have a picture of a fairyland not under ground, but under sea; and this legend of Mona and her _Morgan_ lover is one of the most beautiful of all the fairy-tales of Brittany.[84] Another one of Luzel's legends, concerning a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland as a world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one directly bearing on the Psychological Theory; for this dead man, who is a dead priest, has a palace in a realm of enchantment, and to enter his country one must have a white fairy-wand with which to strike 'in the form of a cross' two blows upon the rock concealing the entrance.[84] M. Paul Sebillot records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world containing fields and villages and beautiful castles; and it is so pleasant a world that mortals going there find years no longer than days.[85]

_Fairies of Upper Brittany._[86]--Princ.i.p.ally in Upper Brittany, M.

Sebillot found rich folk-lore concerning _fees_, though some of his material is drawn from peasants and fishermen who are not so purely Celtic as those in Lower Brittany; and he very concisely summarizes the various names there given to the fairy-folk as follows:--'They are generally called _Fees_ (Fairies), sometimes _Fetes_ (Fates), a name nearer than _fees_ to the Latin _Fata_; _Fete_ (fem.) and _Fete_ (mas.) are both used, and from _Fete_ is probably derived _Faito_ or _Faitaud_, which is the name borne by the fathers, the husbands, or the children of the _fees_ (Saint-Cast). Near Saint-Briac (Ille-et-Vilaine) they are sometimes called _Fions_; this term, which is applied to both s.e.xes, seems also to designate the mischievous _lutins_ (sprites). Round the Mene, in the cantons of Collinee and of Moncontour, they are called _Margot la Fee_, or _ma Commere_ (my G.o.dmother) _Margot_, or even the _Bonne Femme_ (Good Woman) _Margot_. On the coast they are often enough called by the name of _Bonnes Dames_ (Good Ladies), or of _nos Bonnes Meres les Fees_ (our Good Mothers the Fairies); usually they are spoken of with a certain respect.'[87] As the same authority suggests, probably the most characteristic _Fees_ in Upper Brittany are the _Fees des Houles_ (Fairies of the Billows); and traditions say that they lived in natural caverns or grottoes in the sea-cliffs. They form a distinct cla.s.s of sea-fairies unknown elsewhere in France or Europe.[88] M.

Sebillot regards them as sea-divinities greatly rationalized. a.s.sociated with them are the _fions_, a race of dwarfs having swords no bigger than pins.[88] A pretty legend about magic buckwheat cakes, which in different forms is widespread throughout all Brittany, is told of these little cave-dwelling fairies:--

Like the larger _fees_ the _fions_ kept cattle; and one day a black cow belonging to the _fions_ of Pont-aux-Hommes-Nees ate the buckwheat in the field of a woman of that neighbourhood. The woman went to the _fions_ to complain, and in reply to her a voice said: 'Hold your tongue; you will be paid for your buckwheat!' Thereupon the _fions_ gave the woman a cupful of buckwheat, and promised her that it would never diminish so long as none should be given away. That year buckwheat was very scarce, but no matter how many buckwheat cakes the woman and her family ate there was never diminution in the amount of the fairy buckwheat. At last, however, the unfortunate hour came. A rag-gatherer arrived and asked for food. Thoughtlessly the woman gave him one of her buckwheat cakes, and suddenly, as though by magic, all the rest of the buckwheat disappeared for ever.

Along the Rance the inhabitants tell about _fees_ who appear during storms. These storm-fairies are dressed in the colours of the rainbow, and pa.s.s along following a most beautiful _fee_ who is mounted in a boat made from a nautilus of the southern seas. And the boat is drawn by two sea-crabs. In no other place in Brittany are similar _fees_ said to exist.[89] In Upper Brittany, as in Lower Brittany, the _fees_ generally had their abodes in tumuli, in dolmens, in forests, in waste lands where there are great rocks, or about menhirs; and many other kinds of spirits lived in the sea and troubled sailors and fisher-folk. Like all fairy-folk of Celtic countries, those of Upper Brittany were given to stealing children. Thus at Dinard not long ago there was a woman more than thirty years old who was no bigger than a girl of ten, and it was said she was a fairy changeling.[90] In Lower Brittany the _taking_ of children was often attributed to dwarfs rather than to _fees_, though the method of making the changeling speak is the same as in Upper Brittany, namely, to place in such a manner before an open fire a number of eggsh.e.l.ls filled with water that they appear to the changeling--who is placed where he can well observe all the proceedings--like so many small pots of cooking food; whereupon, being greatly astonished at the unusual sight, he forgets himself and speaks for the first time, thus betraying his demon nature.

The following midwife story, as told by J. M. Comault, of Gouray, in 1881, is quite a parallel to the one we have recorded (on p. 54) as coming from Grange, Ireland:--A midwife who delivered a _Margot la fee_ carelessly allowed some of the fairy ointment to get on one of her own eyes. The eye at once became clairvoyant, so that she beheld the _fees_ in their true nature. And, quite like a midwife in a similar story about the _fees des houles_, this midwife happened to see a _fee_ in the act of stealing, and spoke to her. Thereupon the _fee_ asked the midwife with which eye she beheld her, and when the midwife indicated which one it was, the _fee_ pulled it out.[91]

Generally, like their relatives in insular Celtdom, the fairies of Upper Brittany could a.s.sume various forms, and could even transform the human body; and they were given to playing tricks on mortals, and always to taking revenge on them if ill-treated. In most ways they were like other races of fairies, Celtic and non-Celtic, though very much anthropomorphosed in their nature by the peasant and mariner.

As a rule, the _fees_ of Upper Brittany are described in legend as young and very beautiful. Some, however, appear to be centuries old, with teeth as long as a human hand, and with backs covered with seaweeds, and mussels, or other marine growths, as an indication of their great age.[92] At Saint-Cast they are said to be dressed (like the _corrigans_ at Carnac, see p. 208) in _toile_, a kind of heavy linen cloth.[92]

On the sea-coast of Upper Brittany the popular opinion is that the _fees_ are a fallen race condemned to an earthly exile for a certain period. In the region of the Mene, canton of Collinee, the old folk say that, after the angels revolted, those left in paradise were divided into two parts: those who fought on the side of G.o.d and those who remained neutral. These last, already half-fallen, were sent to the earth for a time, and became the _fees_.[92]

The general belief in the interior of Brittany is that the _fees_ once existed, but that they disappeared as their country was changed by modern conditions. In the region of the Mene and of Erce (Ille-et-Vilaine) it is said that for more than a century there have been no _fees_; and on the sea-coast, where it is still firmly believed that the _fees_ used to live in the billows or amid certain grottoes in the cliffs against which the billows broke, the opinion is that they disappeared at the beginning of the last century. The oldest Bretons say that their parents or grandparents often spoke about having seen _fees_, but very rarely do they say that they themselves have seen _fees_. M.

Sebillot found only two who had. One was an old needle-woman of Saint-Cast, who had such fear of _fees_ that if she was on her way to do some sewing in the country, and it was night, she always took a long circuitous route to avoid pa.s.sing near a field known as the _Couvent des Fees_. The other was Marie Chehu, a woman eighty-eight years old.[93]

THE _CORRIGAN_ RACE[94]

It is the _corrigan_ race, however, which, more than _fees_ or fairies, forms a large part of the invisible inhabitants of Brittany; and this race of _corrigans_ and _nains_ (dwarfs) may be made to include many kinds of _lutins_, or as they are often called by the peasant, _follets_ or _esprits follets_ (playful elves). Though the peasants both in Upper and in Lower Brittany may have no strong faith in _fees_, most of them say that _corrigans_, or _nains_, and mischievous house-haunting spirits still exist. But in a few localities, as M. Sebillot discovered, there is an opinion that the _lutins_ departed with the _fees_, and with them will return in this century, because during each century with an odd number like 1900, the fairy tribes of all kinds are said to be visible or to reappear among men, and to become invisible or to disappear during each century with an even number like 1800. So this is the visible century.

_Corrigans_ and _follets_ only show themselves at night, or in the twilight. No one knows where they pa.s.s the day-time. Some _lutins_ or _follets_, after the manner of Scotch kelpies, live solitary lives in lakes or ponds (whereas _corrigans_ are socially united in groups or families), and amuse themselves by playing tricks on travellers pa.s.sing by after dark. Souvestre records a story showing how the _lutins_ can a.s.sume any animal form, but that their natural form is that of a little man dressed in green; and that the _corrigans_ have declared war on them for being too friendly to men.[95] From what follows about _lutins_, by M. Goulven Le Scour, they show affinity with Pucks and such shape-s.h.i.+fting hobgoblins as are found in Wales:--'The _lutins_ were little dwarfs who generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated travellers. And it is related in Breton legends that these _lutins_ sometimes transformed themselves into black horses or into goats; and whoever then had the misfortune to encounter them sometimes found his life in danger, and was always seized with great terror.' But generally, what the Breton peasant tells about _corrigans_ he is apt to tell at another time about _lutins_. And both tribes of beings, so far as they can be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples--pixies in Cornwall, Robin Good-fellows in England, goblins in Wales, or brownies in Scotland. Both _corrigans_ and _lutins_ are supposed to guard hidden treasure; some trouble horses at night; some, like their English cousins, may help in the house-work after all the family are asleep; some cause nightmare; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle; some trouble men and women like obsessing spirits; and nearly all of them are mischievous. In an article in the _Revue des Traditions Populaires_ (v.

101), M. Sebillot has cla.s.sified more than fifty names given to _lutins_ and _corrigans_ in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which these spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the country they inhabit.

Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the _corrigans_ and the Cornish pixies find their favourite amus.e.m.e.nt in the circular dance. When the moon is clear and bright they gather for their frolic near menhirs, and dolmens, and tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country; and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal pa.s.sing by to join them. If he happens to be a good-natured man and enters their sport heartily, they treat him quite as a companion, and may even do him some good turn; but if he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he falls down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. According to a story reported from Lorient (Morbihan)[96] it is taboo for the _corrigans_ to make a complete enumeration of the days of the week:--

_The 'Corrigan' Taboo._--'At night, the _corrigans_ dance, singing, "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday"; they are prohibited from completing the enumeration of the days of the week. A _corrigan_ having had the misfortune to permit himself to be tempted to add "Sat.u.r.day", immediately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and distressed, attempted in vain to knock in his hump with blows of their fists.'

_'Corrigans' at Carnac._--How the tradition of the dancing _corrigans_ and their weekday song still lives, appears from the following accounts which I found at and near Carnac, the first account having been given during January 1909 by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six years old:--'The _corrigans_ are little dwarfs who formerly, by moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They sang a song the couplet of which was not understood, but only the refrain, translated in Breton: "_Di Lun_ (Monday), _Di Merh_ (Tuesday), _Di Merhier_ (Wednesday)."

'They whistled in order to a.s.semble. Where they danced mushrooms grew; and it was necessary to maintain silence so as not to interrupt them in their dance. They were often very brutal towards a man who fell under their power, and if they had a grudge against him they would make him submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed strongly in the _corrigans_, because they thus saw them and heard them. The _corrigans_ dressed in very coa.r.s.e white linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits (_esprits follets_), who lived under dolmens.'

One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame Louise Le Rouzic in her neat home at Kerallan, a little group of thatched cottages about a mile from Carnac. As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her daughter was watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it boiled in great iron pots hanging from chains over a brilliant fire on the hearth. Large gleaming bra.s.s basins were ranged on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place wherein the fire burned, and ma.s.sive bedsteads carved after the Breton style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been talked about, our conversation turned to _corrigans_, and then the good woman of the house told us these tales:--

_'Corrigans' at Church._--'In former times a young girl having taken the keys of the church (presumably at Carnac) and having entered it, found the _corrigans_ about to dance; and the _corrigans_ were singing, "_Lundi, Mardi_" (Monday, Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they stopped, surrounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She accepted, and, in singing, added to their song "_Mercredi_" (Wednesday).

In amazement, the _corrigans_ cried joyfully, "She has added something to our song; what shall we give her as recompense?" And they gave her a bracelet. A friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet came from; and the young girl told what had happened. The second girl hurried to the church, and found the _corrigans_ still dancing the _rond_. She joined their dance, and, in singing, added "_Jeudi_"

(Thursday) to their song; but that broke the cadence; and the _corrigans_ in fury, instead of recompensing her wished to punish her.

"What shall we do to her?" one of them cried. "Let the day be as night to her!" the others replied. And by day, wherever she went, she saw only the night.'

_The 'Corrigans'' Sabbath._--'Where my grandfather lived,' continued Madame Le Rouzic, 'there was a young girl who went to the sabbath of the _corrigans_; and when she returned and was asked where she had been, said, "I have travelled over water, wood, and hedges." And she related all she had seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the _corrigans_ came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed. Upon hearing the uproar, my grandfather arose and found the girl lying flat on the stone floor. "Never question me again," she said to him, "or they will kill me."'[97]

_'Corrigans' as Fairies._--Some Breton legends give _corrigans_ the chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and Ireland; and Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (pp. 25-30) makes the Breton word _corrigan_ synonymous with _fee_ or fairy, thus:--'_Le Seigneur Nann et la Fee (Aotrou Nann hag ar Corrigan)_.' In this legend the _corrigan_ seems clearly enough to be a water-fairy: 'The _Korrigan_ was seated at the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair hair.' But unlike most water-fairies, the _Fee_ lives in a grotto, which, according to Villemarque, is one of those ancient monuments called in Breton _dolmen_, or _ti ar corrigan_; in French, _Table de pierres_, or _Grotte aux Fees_--like the famous one near Rennes. The fountain where the _Fee_ was seated seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as Villemarque says, are often found near a _Grotte aux Fees_, and called _Fontaine de la Fee_, or in Breton, _Feunteun ar corrigan_. In another of Villemarque's legends, _L'Enfant Suppose_, after the egg-sh.e.l.l test has been used and the little _corrigan_-changeling is replaced by the real child, the latter as though all the while it had been in an unconscious trance-state--which has a curious bearing on our Psychological Theory--stretches forth its arms and awakening exclaims, 'Ah! mother, what a long time I have been asleep.'[98] And in _Les Nains_ we see the little _Duz_ or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding treasures.[98]

In his introduction to the _Barzaz Breiz_, Villemarque describes _les korrigan_, whom he equates with _les fees_, as very similar to ordinary fairies. They can foretell the future, they know the art of war--quite like the Irish 'gentry' or Tuatha De Danann--they can a.s.sume any animal form, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the twinkling of an eye. They love feasting and music--like all Celtic fairy-folk; and dance in a circle holding hands, but at the least noise disappear. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They are little beings not more than two feet high, and beautifully proportioned, with bodies as aerial and transparent as those of wasps.

And like all fairy, or elvish races, and like the Breton _Morgans_ or water-spirits, they are given to stealing the children of mortals.

Professor J. Loth has called my attention to an unpublished Breton legend of his collection, in which there are fairy-like beings comparable to these described by Villemarque; and he tells me, too, that throughout Brittany one finds to-day the counterpart of the Welsh _Tylwyth Teg_ or 'Fair Family', and that both in Wales and Brittany the _Tylwyth Teg_ are popularly described as little women, or maidens, like fairies no larger than children.

_Fairies and Dwarfs._--Where Villemarque draws a clear distinction is between these _korrigan_ and _fees_ on the one hand, and the _nains_ or dwarfs on the other. These last are what we have found a.s.sociated or identified with _corrigans_ in the Morbihan. Villemarque describes the _nains_ as a hideous race of beings with dark or even black hairy bodies, with voices like old men, and with little sparkling black eyes.

They are fond of playing tricks on mortals who fall into their power; and are given to singing in a circular dance the weekday song. Very often _corrigans_ regarded as _nains_, equally with all kinds of _lutins_, are believed to be evil spirits or demons condemned to live here on earth in a penitential state for an indefinite time; and sometimes they seem not much different from what Irish Celts, when talking of fairies, call fallen angels. _Le Nain de Kerhuiton_, translated from Breton by Professor J. Loth, in part ill.u.s.trates this:--Upon seeing water boiling in a number of egg-sh.e.l.ls ranged before an open fire, a _polpegan_-changeling is so greatly astonished that he unwittingly speaks for the first time, and says, 'Here I am almost one hundred years old, and never such a thing have I yet seen!' 'Ah! son of Satan!' then cries out the mother, as she comes from her place of hiding and beats the _polpegan_--who thus by means of the egg-sh.e.l.l test has been tricked into revealing his demon nature.[99] In a parallel story, reported by Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 33 n.), a _nain_-changeling is equally astonished to see a similar row of egg-sh.e.l.ls boiling before an open fire like so many pots of food, and gives himself away through the following remark:--'I have seen the acorn before the oak; I have seen the egg before the white chicken: I have never seen the equal to this.'

_Nature of the 'Corrigans'._--As to the general ideas about the _corrigans_, M. Le Scour says:--'Formerly the _corrigans_ were the terror of the country-folk, especially in Finistere, in the Morbihan, and throughout the Cotes-du-Nord. They were believed to be souls in pain condemned to wander at night in waste lands and marshes. Sometimes they were seen as dwarfs; and often they were not seen at all, but were heard in houses making an infernal noise. Unlike the _lavandieres de nuits_ (phantom washerwomen of the night), they were heard only in summer, never in winter.'

THE BRETON LEGEND OF THE DEAD

We come now to the Breton Legend of the Dead, common generally to all parts of Armorica, though probably even more widespread in Lower Brittany than in Upper Brittany; and this we call the Armorican Fairy-Faith. Even where the peasants have no faith in _fees_ or fairies, and where their faith in _corrigans_ is weak or almost gone, there is a strong conviction among them that the souls of the dead can show themselves to the living, a vigorous belief in apparitions, phantom-funerals, and various death-warnings. As Professor Anatole Le Braz has so well said in his introduction to _La Legende de la Mort_, 'the whole conscience of these people is fundamentally directed toward that which concerns death. And the ideas which they form of it, in spite of the strong Christian imprint which they have received, do not seem much different from those which we have pointed out among their pagan ancestors. For them, as for the primitive Celts, death is less a change of condition than a journey, a departure for another world.' And thus it seems that this most popular of the Breton folk-beliefs is genuinely Celtic and extremely ancient. As Renan has said, the Celtic people are 'a race mysterious, having knowledge of the future and the secret of death'.[100] And whereas in Ireland unusual happenings or strange accidents and death are attributed to fairy interference, in Brittany they are attributed to the influence of the dead.

The Breton Celt makes no distinction between the living and the dead.

All alike inhabit this world, the one being visible, the other invisible. Though seers can at all times behold the dead, on November Eve (_La Toussaint_) and on Christmas Eve they are most numerous and most easily seen; and no peasant would think of questioning their existence. In Ireland and Scotland the country-folk fear to speak of fairies save through an euphemism, and the Bretons speak of the dead indirectly, and even then with fear and trembling.

The following legend, which I found at Carnac, will serve to ill.u.s.trate both the profundity of the belief in the power of the dead over the living in Lower Brittany, and how deeply the people can be stirred by the predictions of one who can see the dead; and the legend is quite typical of those so common in Armorica:--

_Foretelling Deaths._--'Formerly there was a woman whom spirits impelled to rise from her bed, it made no difference at what hour of the night, in order to behold funerals in the future. She predicted who should die, who should carry the corpse, who the cross, and who should follow the _cortege_. Her predictions frightened every one, and made her such a terror to the country that the mayor had threatened to take legal proceedings against her if she continued her practice; but she was compelled to tell the things which the spirits showed her. It is about ten years since this woman died in the hospital at Auray.'

_Testimony of a Breton Seeress._--There lives in the little hamlet of Kerlois, less than a mile from Carnac, a Breton seeress, a woman who since eight years of age has been privileged to behold the world invisible and its inhabitants, quite like the woman who died at Auray.

She is Madame Eugenie Le Port, now forty-two years old, and what she tells of things seen in this invisible world which surrounds her, might easily be taken for Irish legends about fairies. Knowing very little French, because she is thoroughly Breton, Madame Le Port described her visions in her own native tongue, and her eldest daughter acted as interpreter. I had known the good woman since the previous winter, and so we were able to converse familiarly; and as I sat in her own little cottage, in company with her husband and daughters, and with M. Lemort, who acted as recording secretary, this is what she said in her clear earnest manner in answer to my questions:--

'We believe that the spirits of our ancestors surround us and live with us. One day on a road from Carnac I encountered a woman of Kergoellec who had been dead eight days. I asked her to move to one side so that I could pa.s.s, and she vanished. This was eleven o'clock in the morning. I saw her at another time in the Marsh of Breno; I spoke, but she did not reply. On the route from Plouharnel (near Carnac) I saw in the day-time the funeral of a woman who did not die until fifteen days afterwards. I recognized perfectly all the people who took part in it; but the person with me saw nothing. Another time, near three o'clock in the afternoon, and eight days before her death, I saw upon the same route the funeral of a woman who was drowned. And I have seen a phantom horse going to the sabbath, and as if forced along against its will, for it reared and pawed the earth. When Pierre Rouzic of Kerlois died, I saw a light of all colours between heaven and earth, the very night of his death. I have seen a woman asleep whose spirit must have been free, for I saw it hovering outside her body. She was not awakened [at the time] for fear that the spirit would not find its body again.' In answer to my question as to how long these various visions usually lasted, Madame Le Port said:--'They lasted about a quarter of an hour, or less, and all of them disappeared instantaneously.' As Madame Le Port now seemed unable to recall more of her visions, I finally asked her what she thought about _corrigans_, and she replied:--'I believe they exist as some special kind of spirits, though I have never seen any.'

_Proof that the Dead Exist._--This is what M. Jean Couton, an old Breton, told me at Carnac:--'I am only an old peasant, without instruction, without any education, but let me tell you what I think concerning the dead. Following my own idea, I believe that after death the soul always exists and travels among us. I repeat to you that I have belief that the dead are seen; I am now going to prove this to you in the following story:--

'One winter evening I was returning home from a funeral. I had as companion a kinswoman of the man just buried. We took the train and soon alighted in the station of Plouharnel. We still had three kilometres to go before reaching home, and as it was winter, and at that epoch there was no stage-coach, we were obliged to travel afoot. As we were going along, suddenly there appeared to my companion her dead relative whom we had buried that day. She asked me if I saw anything, and since I replied to her negatively she said to me, "Touch me, and you will see without doubt." I touched her, and I saw the same as she did, the person just dead, whom I clearly recognized.'[101]

_Phantom Washerwomen._--Concerning a very popular Breton belief in phantom washerwomen (_les lavandieres de nuits_; or in Breton, _cannered noz_), M. Goulven Le Scour offers the following summary:--'The _lavandieres de nuits_ were heard less often than the _corrigans_, but were much more feared. It was usually towards midnight that they were heard beating their linen in front of different was.h.i.+ng-places, always some way from the villages. According to the old folk of the past generation, when the phantom washerwomen would ask a certain pa.s.ser-by to help them to wring sheets, he could not refuse, under pain of being stopped and wrung like a sheet himself. And it was necessary for those who aided in wringing the sheets to turn in the same direction as the washerwomen; for if by misfortune the a.s.sistant turned in an opposite direction, he had his arms wrung in an instant. It is believed that these phantom washerwomen are women condemned to wash their mortuary sheets during whole centuries; but that when they find some mortal to wring in an opposite direction, they are delivered.'[102]

_Breton Animistic Beliefs._--M. Z. Le Rouzic, a Breton Celt who has spent most of his life studying the archaeology and folk-lore of the Morbihan, and who is at present Keeper of the Miln Museum at Carnac, summarizes for us the state of popular beliefs as he finds them existing in the Carnac country now:--'There are few traditions concerning the _fees_ in the region of Carnac; but the belief in spirits, good and bad--which seems to me to be the same as the belief in _fees_--is general and profound, as well as the belief in the incarnation of spirits. And I am convinced that these beliefs are the reminiscences of ancient Celtic beliefs held by the Druids and conserved by Christianity.'

In Finistere, as purely Breton as the Morbihan, I found the Legend of the Dead just as widespread, and the belief in spirits and the apparitional return of the dead quite as profound; but nothing worth recording concerning fairies. The stories which follow were told to me by M. Pierre Vichon, a pure Breton Celt, born at Lescoff, near the Pointe du Raz, Finistere, in 1842. Peter is a genuine old 'sea-dog', having made the tour of the globe, and yet he has not lost the innate faith of his ancient ancestors in a world invisible; for though he says he cannot believe all that the people in his part of Finistere tell about spirits and ghosts, he must have a belief that the dead as spirits exist and influence the living, because of his own personal experience--one of the most remarkable of its kind. Peter speaks Breton, French, and English fluently, and since he had an opportunity for the first time in seventeen months of using English, he told me the stories in my own native language:--

_Pierre Vichon's Strange Experience._--'Some forty years ago a strange thing happened in my life. A relative of mine had taken service in the Austrian army, for by profession he was a soldier, though at first he had begun to study for the priesthood. During the progress of the war I had no news from him; and, then one day while I was on the deck of a Norwegian s.h.i.+p just off Dover (England), my fellow sailors heard a noise as though of a gun being discharged, and the whirr of a shot. At the same moment I fell down on the deck as though mortally wounded, and lay in an unconscious state for two hours. When the news came, it was ascertained that at the very moment I fell and the gun-report was heard, my relative in Austria had been shot in the head and fell down dead. And he had been seen to throw his hands up to his head to grasp it just as I did.'

_An Apparition of the Dead._--'I had another relative who died in a hospital near Christiania, Norway; and on the day he died a sister of mine, then a little girl, saw his spirit appear here in Lescoff, and she easily recognized it; but none of her girl companions with her at the time saw the spirit. After a few days we had the news of the death, and the time of it and the time of my sister's seeing the spirit coincided exactly.'

In all the peninsula of which the famous and dangerous Pointe du Raz is the terminus, similar stories are current. And among the fisher-folk with whom I lived on the strange and historic ile de Sein, the Legend of the Dead is even more common.

_The Dead and Fairies Compared._--Without setting down here in detail numerous other death-legends which we have collected, we may now note how much the same are the powers and nature of the dead and spirits in Brittany, and the power and nature of the fairy races in Celtic Britain and Ireland. Thus the Breton dead strike down the living just as fairies are said to do; the _Ankou_,[103] who is a king of the dead, and his subjects, like a fairy king and fairies, have their own particular paths or roads over which they travel in great sacred processions;[104] and exactly as fairies, the hosts of the dead are in possession of the earth on November Eve, and the living are expected to prepare a feast and entertainment for them of curded-milk, hot pancakes, and cider, served on the family table covered with a fresh white table-cloth, and to supply music. The Breton dead come to enjoy this hospitality of their friends; and as they take their places at the table the stools are heard to move, and sometimes the plates; and the musicians who help to entertain them think that at times they feel the cold breath of the invisible visitors. Concerning this same feast of the dead (_La Toussaint_) Villemarque in his _Barzaz Breiz_ (p. 507) records that in many parts of Brittany libations of milk are poured over or near ancestral tombs--just as in Ireland and Scotland libations of milk are poured to fairies. And the people of Armorica at other times than November Eve remember the dead very appropriately, as in Ireland the Irish remember fairies. The Breton peasant thinks of the dead as frequently as the Irishman thinks of fairies. One day while I was walking toward Carnac there was told to me in the most ordinary manner a story about a dead man who used to be seen going along the very road I was on. He quite often went to the church in Carnac seeking prayers for his soul. And almost every man or woman one meets in rural Lower Brittany can tell many similar stories. If a mortal should happen to meet one of the dead in Brittany and be induced to eat food which the dead sometimes offer, he will never be able to return among the living,[105] for the effect would be the same as eating fairy-food. Like ghosts and fairies in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, in Brittany the dead guard hidden treasure. It is after sunset that the dead have most power to strike down the living,[105] and to _take_ them just as fairies do. A natural phenomenon, a malady, a death, or a tempest may be the work of a spirit in Brittany,[105] and in Ireland the work of a fairy. The Breton dead, like the Scotch fairies described in Kirk's _Secret Commonwealth_, are capable of making themselves visible or invisible to mortals, at will.[105] Their bodies--for they have bodies--are material,[105] being composed of matter in a state unknown to us; and the bodies of daemons as described by the Ancients are made of congealed air. The dead in Brittany have forms more slender and smaller in stature than those of the living;[105] and herein we find one of the factors which supporters of the Pygmy Theory would emphasize, but it is thoroughly psychical. Old Breton farmers after death return to their farms, as though come from Fairyland; and sometimes they even take a turn at the ploughing.[105] As in Ireland, so in Brittany, the day belongs to the living, and the night, when a mortal is safer indoors than out, to spirits and the dead.[105] The Bretons take great care not to counterfeit the dead nor to speak slightingly of them,[106] for, like fairies, they know all that is done by mortals, and can hear all that is said about them, and can take revenge. Just as in the case of all fairies and goblins, the dead disappear at first c.o.c.k-crow.[107] The world of the dead, like the land of Faerie or the Otherworld, may be underground, in the air, in a hill or mountain like a fairy palace, under a river or sea, and even on an island out amid the ocean.[107] As other Celts do against evil spirits and fairies, the Breton peasants use magic against evil souls of the dead,[108] and the priests use exorcisms. The Breton realm of the dead equally with the Irish Fairyland is an invisible world peopled by other kinds of spirits besides disembodied mortals and fairies.[109] The dead haunt houses just as Robin Good-fellows and brownies, or pixies and goblins, generally do. The dead are fond of frequenting cross-roads, and so are all sorts of fairies. In Brittany one must always guard against the evil dead, in Cornwall against pixies, in other Celtic lands against different kinds of fairies. In Ireland and Scotland there is the banshee, in Wales the death-candle, in Brittany the _Ankou_ or king of the dead, to foretell a death. And as the banshee wails before the ancestral mansion, so the _Ankou_ sounds its doleful cry before the door of the one it calls.[109] There seems not to be a family in the Carnac region of the Morbihan without some tradition of a warning coming before the death of one of its members. In Ireland only certain families have a banshee, but in Brittany all families. Professor Le Braz has devoted a large part of his work on _La Legende de la Mort_ to these Breton death-warnings or _intersignes_. They may be shades of the dead under many aspects--ghostly hands, or ghosts of inanimate objects. They may come by the fall of objects without known cause; by a magpie resting on a roof--just as in Ireland; by the crowing of c.o.c.ks, and the howling of dogs at night. They may be death-candles or torches, dreams, peculiar bodily sensations, images in water, phantom funerals, and death-chariots or death-coaches as in Wales.