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“For heaven’s sake, sire, go not hence,” said one of them, “since the day has begun with such an evil token.”
“Impossible,” was the royal reply. “I have given the order; we must march.”
That morning, on the other hand, the sister of Morvan said to her brother: “My dear brother, if you love me seek not this combat, for if you do you will certainly go to your death, and what will become of me afterward? I see on the shore the white sea-horse, the symbol of Brittany. A monstrous serpent entwines him, seizing him round the hind legs and the body with his enormous coils. The sea-steed turns his head to seize the reptile. The combat is unequal. You are alone; the Franks are legion!”
But Morvan was already beyond ear-shot.
As the hermit of the wood of Helléan[48]slept three knocks sounded on his door.
“Good hermit,” said some one, “open the door. I seek an asylum and help from you.”
The wind blew coldly from the country of the Franks. It was the hour when savage beasts wander here and there in search of their prey. The hermit did not rise with alacrity.
“Who are you who knock at my door at this hour of night demanding an entrance?” he asked sulkily; “and by what sign shall I know whether you are a true man or otherwise?”
“Priest, I am well known in this land. I am Morvan Lez-Breiz, the Hatchet of Brittany.”
“I will not open my door to you,” said the hermit hastily.222“You are a rebel; you are the enemy of the good King of the Franks.”
“How, priest!” cried Morvan angrily, “I am a Breton and no traitor or rebel. It is the King of the Franks who has been a traitor to this land.”
“Silence, recreant!” replied the hermit. “Rail not against the King of the Franks, for he is a man of God.”
“Of God, say you? Nay, rather of the devil! Has he not ravaged and wasted the Breton land? The gold that he wrings from the Breton folk is expended for the good of Satan. Open, hermit, open!”
“Not so, my son, for should I do so the Franks would surely fix a quarrel upon me.”
“You refuse?” shouted Morvan in a voice of thunder. “Good; then I shall burst into your cell,” and with these words he threw himself against the door, which creaked ominously.
“Hold, my son, hold!” cried the old hermit in tremulous tones. “Forbear and I will open to you”; and seizing a torch he lit it at the remains of his fire and went to open the door.
He unlocked it and drew it back, but as he did so he recoiled violently, for he saw advancing upon him a terrible spectre, holding its head in its two hands. Its eyes seemed full of blood and fire, and rolled round and round in a most horrible manner. The hermit was about to shriek in terror when the head of the apparition, after laughing grimly, addressed him:
“Come now, old Christian, do not be afraid. God permits this thing to be. He has allowed the Franks223to decapitate me, but for a time only, and as you see me now I am only a phantom. But He will permit you yourself to replace my head on my shoulders if you will.”
The hermit stammered and drew back. This was not his first encounter with the supernatural, which he had good reason to dread, but like all Bretons he had come under the magnetism of Morvan, even although he believed that the King of the Franks was his rightful overlord; so, steeling himself against his natural timidity, he said:
“If God permits this thing I shall be very willing to replace your head on your shoulders.”
“Take it, then,” said the decapitated Morvan, and with trembling hands the priest took the gory trophy and replaced it on the Breton chief’s shoulders, saying at the same time: “I replace your head, my son, in the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”
And by virtue of this benediction the phantom once more became a man.
“Morvan,” said the hermit, “you must do penance, heavy penance, with me. You must carry about with you for seven years a robe of lead, padlocked to your neck, and each day at the hour of twelve you must go to fetch water from the well at the summit of the mountain yonder.”
“I will do as you desire,” said Morvan; “I will follow your saintly wish.”
When the seven years of the penance had passed the robe had flayed Morvan’s skin severely, and his beard, which had become grey, and the hair of his head, fell almost to his waist. Those who saw him did not recognize him; but a lady dressed in white, who passed224through the greenwood, stopped and gazed earnestly at him and her eyes filled with tears.
“Morvan, my dear son, it is indeed you,” she said. “Come here, my beloved child, that I may free you of your burden,” and she cut the chain which bound the shirt of lead to the shoulders of the penitent with a pair of golden scissors, saying:
“I am your patron, Saint Anne of Armor.”
Now for seven years had the squire of Morvan sought his master, and one day he was riding through the greenwood of Helléan.
“Alas!” he said, “what profits it that I have slain his murderer when I have lost my dear lord?”
Then he heard at the other end of the wood the plaintive whinnying of a horse. His own steed sniffed the air and replied, and then he saw between the parted branches a great black charger, which he recognized as that of Lez-Breiz. Once more the beast whinnied mournfully. It almost seemed as if he wept. He was standing upon his master’s grave!
But, like Arthur and Barbarossa, Morvan Lez-Breiz will yet return. Yes, one day he will return to fight the Franks and drive them from the Breton land!
We have sundry intimations here of the sources from which Villemarqué drew a part at least of his matter. There are resemblances to Arthurian and kindred romances. For example, the incident which describes the flight of young Morvan is identical with that in the Arthurian saga ofPercival le Gallois, where the child Percival quits his mother’s care in precisely the same fashion. The Frankish monarch and his Court, too, are distinctly drawn in the style of thechansons de gestes, which celebrated the deeds of Charlemagne and225his peers. There are also hints that the paganism against which Charlemagne fought, that of the Moors of Spain, had attracted the attention of the author, and this is especially seen in his introduction of the Moorish giant, so common a figure in the Carlovingian stories.
A sorrowful and touching ballad, claimed by Villemarqué as being sung in the Breton dialect of Léon, tells of the warrior Bran, who was wounded in the great fight of Kerlouan, a village situated on the coast of Léon, in the tenth century. The coast was raided by the Norsemen, and the Bretons, led by their chief, Even the Great, marched against them and succeeded in repelling them. The Norsemen, however, carried off several prisoners, among them a warrior called Bran. Indeed, a village called Kervran, or ‘the village of Bran,’ still exists near the seashore, and here it was, tradition relates, that the warrior was wounded and taken by the Scandinavian pirates. In the church of Goulven is to be seen an ancient tablet representing the Norse vessels which raided the coast.
The ballad recounts how Bran, on finding himself on the enemy’s ship, wept bitterly. On arriving in the land of the Norsemen he was imprisoned in a tower, where he begged his gaolers to allow him to send a letter to his mother. Permission to do so was granted, and a messenger was found. The prisoner advised this man, for his better safety, to disguise himself in the habit of a beggar, and gave him his gold ring in order that his mother might know that the message came from her son in very truth. He added: “When you arrive in226my country proceed at once to my mother, and if she is willing to ransom me show a white sail on your return, but if she refuses, hoist a black sail.”
When the messenger arrived at the warrior’s home in the country of Léon the lady was at supper with her family and the bards were present playing on their harps.
“Greeting, lady,” said the messenger. “Behold the ring of your son, Bran, and here is news from him contained in this letter, which I pray you read quickly.”
The lady took the missive, and, turning to the harpers, told them to cease playing. Having perused the letter she became extremely agitated, and, rising with tears in her eyes, gave orders that a vessel should be equipped immediately so that she might sail to seek her son on the morrow.
One morning Bran, the prisoner, called from his tower: “Sentinel, Sentinel, tell me, do you see a sail on the sea?”
“No,” replied the sentinel, “I see nothing but the sea and the sky.”
At midday Bran repeated the question, but was told that nothing but the birds and the billows were in sight. When the shadows of evening gathered he asked once more, and the perfidious sentinel replied with a lie:
“Yes, lord, there is a ship close at hand, beaten by wind and sea.”
“And what colour of a sail does she show?” asked Bran. “Is it black or white?”
“It is black, lord,” replied the sentinel, in a spirit of petty spite.
When the unhappy warrior heard these words he never spoke more.
That night his mother arrived at the town where he227had been imprisoned. She asked of the people: “Why do the bells sound?”
“Alas! lady,” said an ancient man, “a noble prisoner who lay in yonder tower died this night.”
With bent head the lady walked to the tower, her white hair falling upon her folded arms. When she arrived at its foot she said to the guard: “Open the door quickly; I have come to see my son.”
And when the great door was opened she threw herself upon the corpse of Bran and breathed her last.
On the battlefield of Kerlouan there is an oak which overshadows the shore and which marks the place where the Norsemen fled before the face of Even the Great. On this oak, whose leaves shine in the moon, the birds gather each night, the birds of the sea and the land, both of white and black feather. Among them is an old grey rook and a young crow. The birds sing such a beautiful song that the great sea keeps silence to hear it. All of them sing except the rook and the crow. Now the crow says: “Sing, little birds, sing; sing, little birds of the land, for when you die you will at least end your days inBrittany.”
The crow is of course Bran in disguise, for the name Bran means ‘crow’ in the Breton tongue, and the rook is possibly his mother. In the most ancient Breton traditions the dead are represented as returning to earth in the form of birds. A number of the incidents in this piece are paralleled in the poem ofSir Tristrem, which also introduces a messenger who disguises himself for the purpose of travelling more safely in a foreign country, a ring of gold, which is used to show the messenger’sbona-fides, a perfidious gaoler,228and the idea of the black or white sail. The original poem ofSir Tristremwas probably composed about the twelfth or thirteenth century, and it would seem that the above incidents at least have a Breton source behind them. A mother, however, has been substituted for a lover, and the ancient Breton dame takes the place of Ysonde. There is, indeed, little difference between the passage which relates the arrival of the mother in the Norsemen’s country and that of Ysonde in Brittany when she sails on her last voyage with the intention of succouring Tristrem. Ysonde also asks the people of the place why the bells are ringing, one of the ancient inhabitants tells her of the death of her lover, and, like the Breton mother, she casts herself on the body of him she has lost.
“This passage,” says Villemarqué, with wonderfulsang-froid, “duly attests the prior claim of the Armorican piece!” But even if he had been serious, he wrote without the possession of data for the precise fixing of the period in which the Breton ballad was composed; and in any case his contention cannot assist the Breton argument for Armorican priority in Arthurian literature, as borrowing in ballad and folk-tale is much more flagrant than he, writing as he did in 1867, could ever have guessed—more flagrant even than any adaptation he himself ever perpetrated!
He adds, however, an antiquarian note to the poem which is of far greater interest and probably of more value than his supposition. He alludes to the passage contained in the ballad regarding the harpers who are represented as playing in the hall of Bran’s mother while she sits at supper. The harp, he states, is no longer popular in Brittany, and he asks if this was229always the case. There can be very little doubt that in Brittany, as in other Celtic countries—for example, Wales, Ireland and Scotland—the harp was in ancient times one of the national instruments. It is strange that it should have been replaced in that country by thebiniou, or bagpipe, just as theclairschach, or Highland harp, was replaced by the same instrument in the Highlands of Scotland.
Guy Eder de Fontenelle, a son of the house of Beaumanoir, was one of the most famous partisans of the Catholic League, and, according to one who saw him in 1587, had then begun to show tendencies to the wild life he was afterward to lead. He was sent as a scholar to Paris to the College of Boncotest, but in 1589, when about sixteen years of age, he became impatient of scholastic confinement, sold his books and his robe, and bought a sword and poignard. Leaving the college, he took the road to Orléans, with the object of attaching himself to the army of the Duke of Mayenne, chief of the Catholic party in France, but, returning to his native Brittany, he placed himself at the head of the populace, which had risen in arms on behalf of the Leaguers. As he was of good family and a Breton and displayed an active spirit, they obeyed him very willingly. Soon he translated his intentions into action, and commenced to pillage the smaller towns and to make captive those who differed from him politically. He threatened Guingamp, which was held for the King, and made a sally into Léon, carrying away the daughter of the Lady of Coadelan, a wealthy heiress, who was only about eight or nine years of age. This230occurrence Villemarqué has related for us in Breton verse, assuring us that it was ‘recovered’ by the Comte de Kergariou, a friend of his. Fontenelle is supposed to have encountered the little heiress plucking flowers in a wayside ditch.
“Tell me, little one,” said he, “for whom do you pluck these flowers?”
“For my foster-brother, whom I love. But I am afraid, for I know that Fontenelle is near.”
“Ha, then, so you know this terrible Fontenelle, my child?”
“No, sir, I do not know him, but I have heard tell of him. I have heard folk say that he is a very wicked man and that he carries away young ladies.”
“Yes,” replied Fontenelle, with a laugh, “and, above all, heiresses.”
He took the child in his arms and swung her on to the crupper of his saddle. Then, dashing the spurs into his charger’s flanks, he set off at a gallop for Saint-Malo, where he placed the little heiress in a convent, with the object of marrying her when she had arrived at the age of fourteen.
Years afterward Fontenelle and the heiress, who was now his wife, went to live at their manor of Coadelan. They had a little child beautiful as the day, who greatly resembled his father. One day a letter arrived for the Seigneur, calling upon him to betake himself to Paris at once. His wife was inconsolable.
“Do not set forth alone for Paris, I pray you,” she said, “for if you do I shall instantly follow you. Remain at home, I beg of you, and I will send a messenger in your stead. In the name of God, do not go, husband, for if you do you will never return.”
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But Fontenelle disregarded his wife’s entreaties, and, begging her to take good care of their son during his absence, set forth on his journey to the capital. In due time he arrived in Paris and stood before the King and Queen. He greeted them courteously, but they looked coldly on him, and the King told him bluntly that he should not return to Coadelan, adding: “There are sufficient chains in my palace to restrain you.”
On hearing this Fontenelle called his little page and begged him to return at once to his mistress and tell her to discard her finery, because she would soon be a widow, and to bring him back a coarse shirt and a white sheet, and, moreover, to bring a gold plate on which his enemies might expose his head after his death.
“And, little page,” he added, “take a lock of my hair and place it on the door of Coadelan, so that all men as they go to Mass may say, ‘God have mercy on the soul of Fontenelle.’”
The page did as he was bidden, but as for the plate of gold it was useless, for Fontenelle’s head was thrown on the pavement to serve as a ball for the children of the gutter.
All Paris was surprised when one day a lady from a distant country arrived and made great stir in its narrow streets. Every one asked his neighbour who this dame might be. It was the heiress of Coadelan, dressed in a flowing robe of green. “Alas!” said the pitiful burgesses, “if she knew what we know she would be dressed in black.” Shortly she stood before the King. “Sire,” said she, “give me back my husband, I beg of you.”
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“Alas! madam,” replied the King, with feigned sorrow, “what you ask is impossible, for but three days ago he was broken on the wheel.”
“Whoso goes to Coadelan to-day will turn away from it with grief, for the ashes are black upon the hearth and the nettles crowd around the doorway—and still,” the ballad ends naïvely, “still the wicked world goes round and the poor folk weep with anguish, and say, ‘Alas that she is dead, the mother of the poor.’”
There is a good deal of evidence to show that a considerable body of Bretons accompanied the invading army of William the Conqueror when he set forth with the idea of gaining the English crown. They were attached to his second battle corps, and many of them received land in England. A ballad which, says Villemarqué, bears every sign of antiquity deals with the fortunes of a young Breton, Silvestik, who followed in the train of the Conqueror. The piece is put into the mouth of the mother of Silvestik, who mourns her son’s absence, and its tone is a tender and touching one.
“One night as I lay on my bed,” says the anxious mother, “I could not sleep. I heard the girls at Kerlaz singing the song of my son. O God, Silvestik, where are you now? Perhaps you are more than three hundred leagues from here, cast on the great sea, and the fishes feed upon your fair body. Perhaps you may be married now to some Saxon damsel. You were to have been wed to a lovely daughter of this land, Mannaïk de Pouldergat, and you might have been among us surrounded by beautiful children, dwelling happily in your own home.
THE FINDING OF SILVESTIK
THE FINDING OF SILVESTIK
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“I have taken to my door a little white dove which sits in a small hollow of the stone. I have tied to his neck a letter with the ribbon of my wedding-dress and have sent it to my son. Arise, my little dove, arise on your two wings, fly far, very far across the great sea, and discover if my son is still alive and well.”
Silvestik rested in the shade of an English wood, and as he did so a familiar note fell upon his ear.
“That sound resembles the voice of my mother’s little white dove,” he said. The sound grew louder; it seemed to say, “Good luck to you, Silvestik, good luck to you. I have here a letter for you.”
Silvestik in high happiness read the letter, and resolved to return home to his sorrowing parent.
Two years passed, three years passed, and the dove did not return to delight the heart of the longing mother, who day by day walked the dismal seashore waiting for the vessel that never came. One day of storm she was wandering on the beach as usual when she saw a vessel being driven with great force upon the iron coast. Even as she watched it it dashed upon the rocks. Soon there were cast upon the shore the forms of many dead, and when the gale abated and the heart-sick mother was able to search among them she found Silvestik!
Several competent judges are of opinion that this ballad is contemporary with the events which it relates. Many of the Breton lords who sailed with William the Conqueror did not return for several years after the expedition had accomplished its object, and some not at all. Nothing is known regarding the hero. The bird is frequently the messenger between lovers in ballad literature, but it is seldom that it is found234carrying letters between a mother and her son—indeed, this is perhaps the only instance known.
This ballad has reference to the Breton expedition which sailed for Wales in 1405 to assist the Welsh under Owen Glendower to free their principality from the English yoke. The Bretons rendered material assistance to their Welsh brothers, and had the satisfaction on their return of knowing that they had accomplished that which no French king had ever been able to achieve—the invasion of English territory. The expedition was commanded by Jean de Rieux, Marshal of France, and numbered ten thousand men.
The ballad tells how a young man on the morning after his betrothal received orders to join the standard of de Rieux “to help the Bretons oversea.” It was with bitterness in his heart, says the lover, that he entered the house of his betrothed with the object of bidding her farewell. He told her that duty called him, and that he must go to serve in England. At this her tears gushed forth, and she begged him not to go, reminding him how changeful was the wind and how perfidious the sea.
“Alas!” said she, “if you die what shall I do? In my impatience to have news of you my heart will break. I shall wander by the seashore, from one cottage to another, asking the sailors if they have heard tell of you.”
“Be comforted, Aloïda,” said her lover, “and do not weep on my account. I will send you a girdle from over the sea, a girdle of purple set with rubies.”
They parted at daybreak, he to embark on the sea, she235to weep, and as he sought his ship he could hear the magpies cackle: “If the sea is changeable women are even more so.”
When the autumn had arrived the young girl said: “I have looked far over the sea from the heights of the mountains of Arez. I have seen upon the waters a ship in danger, and I feel that upon it was him whom I love. He held a sword in his hand, he was engaged in a terrible combat, he was wounded to death and his garments were covered with blood. I am certain that he is dead.”
And before many weeks had passed she was affianced to another.
Then good news arrived in the land. The war was finished and the cavalier returned to his home with a gay heart. No sooner had he refreshed himself than he went to seek his beloved. As he approached her dwelling he heard the sound of music, and observed that every window in the house was illuminated as if for a festival. He asked some revellers whom he met outside the cause of this merrymaking, and was told that a wedding was proceeding.
It is the custom in Brittany to invite beggars to a wedding, and when these were now admitted one of them asked hospitality for the night. This was at once granted him, but he sat apart, sad and silent. The bride, observing this, approached him and asked him why he did not join in the feasting. He replied that he was weary with travel and that his heart was heavy with sorrow. Desirous that the marriage festivities should not flag, the bride asked him to join her in the dance, and he accepted the invitation, saying, however, that it was an honour he did not merit.
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Now while they danced he came close to her and murmured in her ear:
“What have you done with the golden ring that you received from me at the door of this very house?”
The bride stared at him in wild dismay. “Oh, heaven,” she cried, “behold, I have now two husbands! I who thought I was a widow!”
“You think wrongly,ma belle,” hissed the beggar; “you will have no husband this side of the grave,” and drawing a dagger from under his cloak he struck the lady to the heart.
In the abbey of Daoulas there is a statue of the Virgin decorated with a splendid girdle of purple sparkling with rubies, which came from across the sea. If you desire to know who gave it to her, ask of a repentant monk who lies prostrate on the grass before the figure of the Mother of God.
It is strange that the faithless damsel should have alleged that she saw her lover perish in a naval combat when in the very year to which the circumstances of the ballad refer (1405) a Breton fleet encountered and defeated an English flotilla several leagues from Brest. “The combat was terrible,” says a historian of the Dukes of Burgundy, “and was animated by the ancient hate between the English and the Bretons.” Perhaps it was in this sea-fight that the lady beheld her lover; and if, as she thought, he was slain, she scarcely deserves the odium which the balladeer has cast upon her memory.
This ballad somewhat belies its name, for it has some relation to an extraordinary incident which was the237means rather of preventing than precipitating a battle. In 1758 a British army was landed upon the shores of Brittany with the object of securing for British merchant ships safety in the navigation of the Channel and of creating a diversion in favour of the German forces, then our allies. A company of men from Lower Brittany, from the towns of Tréguier and Saint-Pol-de-Léon, says Villemarqué, were marching against a detachment of Scottish Highlanders. When at a distance of about a mile the Bretons could hear their enemies singing a national song. At once they halted stupefied, for the air was one well known to them, which they were accustomed to hear almost every day of their lives. Electrified by the music, which spoke to their hearts, they arose in their enthusiasm and themselves sang the patriotic refrain. It was the Highlanders’ turn to be silent. All this time the two companies were nearing one another, and when at a suitable distance their respective officers commanded them to fire; but the orders were given, says the tradition, “in the same language,” and the soldiers on both sides stood stock-still. Their inaction, however, lasted but a moment, for emotion carried away all discipline, the arms fell from their hands, and the descendants of the ancient Celts renewed on the field of battle those ties of brotherhood which had once united their fathers.
However unlikely this incident may seem, it appears to be confirmed by tradition, if not by history. The air which the rival Celts sang is, says Villemarqué,[49]common238to both Brittany and “the Highlands of Scotland.” With the music before me, it seems to bear a marked resemblance to TheGarb of Old Gaul, composed by General Reid (1721-1807). Perhaps Reid, who was a Highlander, based his stirring march on an older Celtic theme common to both lands.
One of the most famous of Breton nautical traditions tells of the chivalry displayed by a Breton crew toward the men of a British warship. During the American War of Independence much enthusiasm was excited in France in connexion with the valiant struggle for liberty in which the American colonies were engaged. A number of Breton ships received letters of marque enabling them to fight on the American side against Great Britain, and these attempted to blockade British commerce. TheSurveillante, a Breton vessel commanded by Couédic de Kergoaler, encountered the British shipQuebec, commanded by Captain Farmer. In the course of the action theSurveillantewas nearly sunk by the British cannonade and theQuebecwent on fire. But Breton and Briton, laying aside their swords, worked together with such goodwill that most of the British crew were rescued and theSurveillantewas saved, although theQuebecwas lost, and this notwithstanding that nearly every man of both crews had been wounded in the fighting.
I have here attempted a very free translation of the stirring ballad which relates this noteworthy incident, which cannot but be of interest at such a time as the present.
239
Yo ho, ye men of Sulniac!We ship to-day at Vannes,We sail upon a glorious trackTo seek an Englishman.Our saucy sloop theSurveillanteMust keep the seaways clearFrom Ushant in the north to Nantes:Aboard her, timoneer!See, yonder is the British craftThat seeks to break blockade;St George’s banner floats abaftHer lowering carronade.A flash! and lo, her thunder speaks,Her iron tempest fliesBeneath her bows, and seaward breaks,And hissing sinks and dies.Thunder replied to thunder; thenThe ships rasped side by side,The battle-hungry Breton menA boarding sally tried,But the stern steel of Britain flashed,And spite of Breton vauntThe lads of Morbihan were dashedBack on theSurveillante.Then was a grim encounter seenUpon the seas that day.Who yields when there is strife betweenBritain and Brittany?Shall Lesser Britain rule the wavesAnd check Britannia’s pride?Not while her frigate’s oaken stavesStill cleave unto her side!But hold! hold! see, devouring fireHas seized the stoutQuebec.The seething sea runs high and higher,TheSurveillante’sa wreck.240Their cannon-shot has breached our side,Our bolts have fired the foe.Quick, to the pumps! No longer bide!Below, my lads! below!The yawning leak is filled, the seaIs cheated of its prey.Now Bretons, let the Britons seeThe heart of Brittany!Brothers, we come to save, our swordsAre sheathed, our hands are free.There is a fiercer fight toward,A fiercer foe than we!A long sea-day, till sank the sun,Briton and Breton wrought,And Great and Little Britain wonThe noblest fight ere fought.It was a sailors’ victoryO’er pride and sordid gain.God grant for ever peace at seaBetween the Britains twain!
Yo ho, ye men of Sulniac!We ship to-day at Vannes,We sail upon a glorious trackTo seek an Englishman.Our saucy sloop theSurveillanteMust keep the seaways clearFrom Ushant in the north to Nantes:Aboard her, timoneer!
Yo ho, ye men of Sulniac!
We ship to-day at Vannes,
We sail upon a glorious track
To seek an Englishman.
Our saucy sloop theSurveillante
Must keep the seaways clear
From Ushant in the north to Nantes:
Aboard her, timoneer!
See, yonder is the British craftThat seeks to break blockade;St George’s banner floats abaftHer lowering carronade.A flash! and lo, her thunder speaks,Her iron tempest fliesBeneath her bows, and seaward breaks,And hissing sinks and dies.
See, yonder is the British craft
That seeks to break blockade;
St George’s banner floats abaft
Her lowering carronade.
A flash! and lo, her thunder speaks,
Her iron tempest flies
Beneath her bows, and seaward breaks,
And hissing sinks and dies.
Thunder replied to thunder; thenThe ships rasped side by side,The battle-hungry Breton menA boarding sally tried,But the stern steel of Britain flashed,And spite of Breton vauntThe lads of Morbihan were dashedBack on theSurveillante.
Thunder replied to thunder; then
The ships rasped side by side,
The battle-hungry Breton men
A boarding sally tried,
But the stern steel of Britain flashed,
And spite of Breton vaunt
The lads of Morbihan were dashed
Back on theSurveillante.
Then was a grim encounter seenUpon the seas that day.Who yields when there is strife betweenBritain and Brittany?Shall Lesser Britain rule the wavesAnd check Britannia’s pride?Not while her frigate’s oaken stavesStill cleave unto her side!
Then was a grim encounter seen
Upon the seas that day.
Who yields when there is strife between
Britain and Brittany?
Shall Lesser Britain rule the waves
And check Britannia’s pride?
Not while her frigate’s oaken staves
Still cleave unto her side!
But hold! hold! see, devouring fireHas seized the stoutQuebec.The seething sea runs high and higher,TheSurveillante’sa wreck.240Their cannon-shot has breached our side,Our bolts have fired the foe.Quick, to the pumps! No longer bide!Below, my lads! below!
But hold! hold! see, devouring fire
Has seized the stoutQuebec.
The seething sea runs high and higher,
TheSurveillante’sa wreck.
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Their cannon-shot has breached our side,
Our bolts have fired the foe.
Quick, to the pumps! No longer bide!
Below, my lads! below!
The yawning leak is filled, the seaIs cheated of its prey.Now Bretons, let the Britons seeThe heart of Brittany!Brothers, we come to save, our swordsAre sheathed, our hands are free.There is a fiercer fight toward,A fiercer foe than we!
The yawning leak is filled, the sea
Is cheated of its prey.
Now Bretons, let the Britons see
The heart of Brittany!
Brothers, we come to save, our swords
Are sheathed, our hands are free.
There is a fiercer fight toward,
A fiercer foe than we!
A long sea-day, till sank the sun,Briton and Breton wrought,And Great and Little Britain wonThe noblest fight ere fought.It was a sailors’ victoryO’er pride and sordid gain.God grant for ever peace at seaBetween the Britains twain!
A long sea-day, till sank the sun,
Briton and Breton wrought,
And Great and Little Britain won
The noblest fight ere fought.
It was a sailors’ victory
O’er pride and sordid gain.
God grant for ever peace at sea
Between the Britains twain!
241CHAPTER IX: THE BLACK ART AND ITS MINISTERS
Sorceryis a very present power in most isolated communities, and in the civilized portions of Brittany it is but a thing of yesterday, while in the more secluded departments it is very much a thing of to-day. The old folk can recall the time when the farm, the dairy, and the field were ever in peril of the spell, the enchantment, the noxious beam of the evil eye, and tales of many a “devilish cantrip sleight,” as Burns happily characterized the activity of the witch and the wizard, were told in hushed voices at the Breton fireside when the winter wind blew cold from the cruel sea and the heaped faggots sent the red glow of fire-warmth athwart the thick shadows of the great farm kitchen, and old and young from grandsire to herd-boy made a great circle to hearken to the creepy tales so dear to the Breton heart.
As in the East, where to refuse baksheesh is to lay oneself open to the curse of the evil eye, the beggar was regarded as the chief possessor of this bespelling member. The guild of tattered wanderers naturally nourished this superstition, and to permit one of its members to hobble off muttering threats or curses was looked upon as suicidal. Indeed, the mendicants were wont to boast of their feats of sorcery to the terrified peasants, who hastened to placate them by all the means in their power.
Certain villages, too, appear to have possessed an evil reputation among the country-folk as the dwelling-places of magicians, centres of sorcery, which it was advisable to shun. Thus we read in Breton proverb242of the sorcerers of Fougères, of Trèves, of Concoret, of Lézat.
The strangest circumstances were connected with the phenomena of sorcery by the credulous Bretons. Thus, did a peasant join a dance of witches, the sabots he had on would be worn out in the course of the merrymaking. A churn of turned butter, a sour pail of milk, were certain to be accounted for by sorcery. In a certain village of Moncontour the cows, the dog, even the harmless, necessary cat, died off, and the farmer hastened to consult a diviner, who advised him to throw milk in the fire and recite certain prayers. The farmer obeyed and the spell was broken!
In the town of Rennes about fifty years ago dwelt a knowing fellow called Robert, a very ‘witch-doctor,’ who investigated cases of sorcery and undertook the dissipation of enchantments. On a certain large farm the milk would yield no butter. An agricultural expert might have hinted at poor pasturage, but the farmer and his wife had other views as to the cause of the ‘insufficiency of fats,’ as an analyst would say, in the lacteal output of the establishment. Straightway they betook themselves to the mysterious Robert, who on arriving to investigate the affair was attired in a skin dyed in two colours. He held in leash a large black dog, evidently his familiar. He exorcized the dairy, and went through a number of strange ceremonies. Then, turning to the awestruck farm hands, he said:
“You may now proceed with your work. The spell is raised. It has been a slow business. I must go now, but don’t be afraid if you see anything odd.”
With these words he whistled, and a great black horse243at once appeared as if from nowhere. Placing his hand on its crupper, he vaulted into the saddle, bade good-bye to the astonished rustics, and while they gazed at him open-mouthed, vanished ‘like a flash.’
Many kinds of amulets or talismans were used by the Breton peasantry to neutralize the power of sorcerers. Thus, if a person carried a snake with him the enchanters would be unable to harm his sight, and all objects would appear to him under their natural forms. Salt placed in various parts of a house guarded it against the entrance of wizards and rendered their spells void.
But many consulted the witch and the sorcerer for their personal advantage, in affairs of the heart, to obtain a number in the casting of lots for conscription which would free them from military service, and so forth; and, as in other countries, there grew up a class of middlemen between the human and the supernatural who posed as fortune-tellers, astrologers, and quack mediciners.
It was said that sorcerers were wont to meet at the many Roches aux Fées in Brittany at fixed periods in order to deliberate as to their actions and settle their affairs. If anyone, it was declared, wandered into their circle or was caught by them listening to their secret conclave he seldom lived long. Others, terrified at the sight presented by the gleaming eyes of the cat-sorcerers, blazing like live coals, fled incontinently from their presence, and found that in the morning the hair of their heads had turned white with the dread experience. Long afterward they would sit by the fireside trembling visibly at nothing, and when interrogated regarding their very evident fears would only groan and bury their faces in their hands.
244
A story is told of one, Jean Foucault, who one moonlight night had, like Tam o’ Shanter, sat overlong
Fast by an ingle bleezin’ finely,Wi’ reaming swats that drank divinely,
Fast by an ingle bleezin’ finely,Wi’ reaming swats that drank divinely,
Fast by an ingle bleezin’ finely,
Wi’ reaming swats that drank divinely,
where the cider was as good as the company, and, issuing at midnight’s weary hour from his favourite inn, was not in a mood to run away from anything, however fearsome. Walking, or rather rolling, across the moor singing the burden of the last catch he had trolled with his fellows at the ale-house, all on a sudden he stumbled into a circle of sorcerer-cats squatting around a cross of stone. They were of immense size and of all colours, black, grey, white, tortoise-shell, and when he beheld them seated round the crucifix, their eyes darting fire and the hair bristling on their backs, his song died upon his lips and all his bellicose feelings, like those of Bob Acres, leaked out at his finger-tips. On catching sight of him the animals set up a horrible caterwauling that made the blood freeze in his veins. For an awful moment the angry cats glared at him with death in their looks, and seemed as if about to spring upon him. Giving himself up for lost, he closed his eyes. But about his feet he could hear a strange purring, and, glancing downward, he beheld his own domestic puss fawning upon him with every sign of affection.
“Pass my master, Jean Foucault,” said the animal.
“It is well,” replied a great grey tom, whom Jean took to be the leader; “pass on, Jean Foucault.”
And Jean, the cider fumes in his head quite dissipated, staggered away, more dead than alive.
245
The more ancient sorcerers of Brittany deserve a word of notice. Magic among the Celtic peoples in olden times was so clearly identified with Druidism that its origin may be said to have been Druidic. Whether Druidism was of Celtic origin, however, is a question upon which much discussion has taken place, some authorities, among them Rhys, believing it to have been of non-Celtic and even non-Aryan origin, and holding that the earliest non-Aryan or so-called Iberian people of Britain introduced the Druidic religion to the immigrant Celts. An argument advanced in favour of this theory is that the Continental Celts sent their neophyte Druid priests to Britain to undergo a special training at the hands of the British Druids, and that this island seems to have been regarded as the headquarters of the cult. The people of Cisalpine Gaul, for instance, had no Druidic priesthood. Cæsar has told us that in Gaul Druidic seminaries were very numerous, and that within their walls severe study and discipline were entailed upon the neophytes, whose principal business was to commit to memory countless verses enshrining Druidic knowledge and tradition. That this instruction was astrological and magical we have the fullest proof.[50]
The Druids were magi as they were priests in the same sense that the American Indian shaman is both magus and priest. That is, they were medicine-men on a higher scale, and had reached a loftier stage of transcendental knowledge than the priest-magicians of more barbarous races. Thus they may be said to be a246link between the barbarian shaman and the magus of medieval times. Many of their practices were purely shamanistic, while others more closely resembled medieval magical rite. But they were not the only magicians of the Celts, for frequently among that people we find magic power the possession of women and of the poetic craft. The magic of Druidism had many points of comparison with most magical systems, and perhaps approximated more to that black magic which desires power for the sake of power alone than to any transcendental type. Thus it included the power to render the magician invisible, to change his bodily shape, to produce an enchanted sleep, to induce lunacy, and to inflict death from afar.
The arts of rain-making, bringing down fire from heaven, and causing mists, snow-storms, and floods were also claimed for the Druids. Many of the spells probably in use among them survived until a comparatively late period, and are still employed in some remote Celtic localities, the names of saints being substituted for those of Celtic deities. Certain primitive ritual, too, is still carried out in the vicinity of some megalithic structures in Celtic areas, as at Dungiven, in Ireland, where pilgrims wash before a great stone in the river Roe and then walk round it, and in many parts of Brittany.[51]
In pronouncing incantations the usual method employed was to stand upon one leg and to point with the forefinger to the person or object on which the spell was to be laid, at the same time closing one eye, as if to concentrate the force of the entire personality upon that which was to be placed under ban. A manuscript247possessed by the monastery of St Gall, and dating from the eighth or ninth century, includes magical formulæ for the preservation of butter and the healing of certain diseases in the name of the Irish god Diancecht. These and others bear a close resemblance to Babylonian and Etruscan spells, and thus go to strengthen the hypothesis often put forward with more or less plausibility that Druidism had an Eastern origin. At all magical rites spells were uttered. Druids often accompanied an army, to assist by their magical arts in confounding the enemy.[52]
There is some proof that in Celtic areas survivals of a Druidic priesthood have descended to our own time in a more or less debased condition. Thus the existence of guardians and keepers of wells said to possess magical properties, and the fact that in certain families magical spells and formulæ are handed down from one generation to another, are so many proofs of the survival of Druidic tradition, however feeble. Females are generally the conservators of these mysteries, and that there were Druid priestesses is fairly certain.
The sea-snake’s egg, or adder’s stone, which is so frequently alluded to in Druidic magical tales, otherwise calledGlain Neidr, was said to have been formed, about midsummer, by an assemblage of snakes. A bubble formed on the head of one of them was blown by others down the whole length of its back, and then, hardening, became a crystal ring. It was used as one of the insignia of the Archdruid, and was supposed to assist in augury.
Theherbe d’or, or ‘golden herb,’ was a medicinal plant much in favour among the Breton peasantry. It is the248selagoof Pliny, which in Druidical times was gathered with the utmost veneration by a hand enveloped with a garment once worn by a sacred person. The owner of the hand was arrayed in white, with bare feet, washed in pure water. In after times the plant was thought to shine from a distance like gold, and to give to those who trod on it the power of understanding the language of dogs, wolves, and birds.
These, with the mistletoe, the favourite Druidical plant, the sorcerer is entreated, in an old balled, to lay aside, to seek no more for vain enchantments, but to remember that he is a Christian.
The touching story of the love of Abélard and Héloïse has found its way into Breton legend as a tale of sorcery. Abélard was a Breton. The Duke of Brittany, whose subject he was born, jealous of the glory of France, which then engrossed all the most famous scholars of Europe, and being, besides, acquainted with the persecution Abélard had suffered from his enemies, had nominated him to the Abbey of St Gildas, and, by this benefaction and mark of his esteem, engaged him to pass the rest of his days in his dominions. Abélard received this favour with great joy, imagining that by leaving France he would quench his passion for Héloïse and gain a new peace of mind upon entering into his new dignity.
The Abbey of St Gildas de Rhuys was founded on the inaccessible coast near Vannes by St Gildas, a British saint, the schoolfellow and friend of St Samson of Dol and St Pol of Léon, and counted among its monks the Saxon St Dunstan, who, carried by pirates from his249native isle, settled on the desolate shores of Brittany and became, under the name of St Goustan, the patron of mariners.
St Gildas built his abbey on the edge of a high, rocky promontory, the site of an ancient Roman encampment, called Grand Mont, facing the shore, where the sea has formed numerous caverns in the rocks. The rocks are composed chiefly of quartz, and are covered to a considerable height with small mussels. Abélard, on his appointment to the Abbey of St Gildas, made over to Héloïse the celebrated abbey he had founded at Nogent, near Troyes, which he called the Paraclete, or Comforter, because he there found comfort and refreshment after his troubles. With Nogent he was to leave his peace. His gentle nature was unable to contend against the coarse and unruly Breton monks. As he writes in his well-known letter to Héloïse, setting forth his griefs: “I inhabit a barbarous country where the language is unknown to me. I have no dealings with the ferocious inhabitants. I walk the inaccessible borders of the stormy sea, and my monks have no other rule than their own. I wish that you could see my dwelling. You would not believe it an abbey. The doors are ornamented only with the feet of deer, of wolves and bears, boars, and the hideous skins of owls. I find each day new perils. I expect at every moment to see a sword suspended over my head.”
It is scarcely necessary to outline the history of Abélard. Suffice it to say that he was one of the most brilliant scholars and dialecticians of all time, possessing a European reputation in his day. Falling in love with Héloïse, niece of Fulbert, a canon of Paris, he awoke in her a similar absorbing passion, which resulted in their250mutual disgrace and Abélard’s mutilation by the incensed uncle. He and his Héloïse were buried in one tomb at the Paraclete. The story of their love has been immortalized by the world’s great poets and painters.
An ancient Breton ballad on the subject has been spoken of as a “naïf and horrible” production, in which one will find “a bizarre mixture of Druidic practice and Christian superstition.” It describes Héloïse as a sorceress of ferocious and sanguinary temper. Thus can legend magnify and distort human failing! As its presentation is important in the study of Breton folk-lore, I give a very free translation of this ballad, in which, at the same time, I have endeavoured to preserve the atmosphere of the original.