Wanderings in Finistere

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 98, 16 July 1927, Page 24

Wanderings in Finistere

RHONA HASZARD, who has written and illustrated this article for THE SUN, is a New Zealander, who is studying art abroad. She was represented at the exhibition of the Auckland Society of Arts this year. . . . ■HE sun had set, but light was still caught up in the sails of the old stone windmills which fling strong arms •to the winds of Finistere. We stood on the crest of the hill for breath and a hurried glance. Behind us lay long autumn roads and lanes bordered with blackberries; a pine forest between whose trunks shimmered the Bade of Brest; cider trees with apples yellow against the sea and sky; and head winds and fair winds and no winds at all. Before and below us, in the hills’ shadow, lay Camaret. Most of the houses had crept to the very water’s edge to be there with the women when the sardine fleet comes home; others straggled up the hills, and lamps already lighted put Mercury’s wings to our pedalling feet. On the quai we searched for shelter, and found it with the unromantic title of Hotel Moderne —but lack of appeal in its name did not lessen its charm, with its little Breton maids and simple cleanliness —electricity alone justifying its title. Three weeks previously we had left Le Mans; already the mornings there had been heavy with the dews of early autumn —trees dripped in the avenue, and between tall grasses spiders wove banners of light.

Here there were no trees, no mists, nor birds nor autumn dews; clear sunny mornings came up day after day above the cliffs on our right, and at mid-days we bathed from a white seashore.

Up on the common above the port, beaten tracks wind betweeen the cottages; no fences exist, and children and hens roam unrestrainedly among the neighbouring plots of cow-cab-bages and impoverished gardens. For the Breton hillsides are bleak and the soil poor—growing, instead of trees, huge lichened rocks. The livelihood of this hospitable people is fishing. As we returned to the quai on our second evening, we found the whole fleet just come home, and the men were unloading the baskets.

Gold and vermilion and white sails glowed above the calm blue water. The men wore canvas suits of the same colours, but the women were all dressed in black, and some wore tiny coiffes perched crownwise on their scraped back hair, and some tied kerchiefs under their chins. Many carried socks in their hands and knitted unbelievably quickly while they chattered as fast to the men. It was quite unintelligible to us, for the Breton tongue is Celtic, and not even a French patois. When the Bretons from Roscoff sail across to England and Wales with their early onions they speak quite easily with the Welsh. Now only the very old peasants do not know French as well —in the schools French is the official language, and the small children don’t bother to learn Breton unless their parents insist. It is quite common for a grandmother to be unable to converse with her grandson—she has never learned French, and he has not learned Breton. It is a pity that such should be the case, because there is a beautiful Breton literature. Now there is a society to help preserve the national speech and costume. The district to which a woman belongs may be ascertained from her coiffe —son e flutter streamers, some are pleated. At Concorneau the young girls twine blue and pink ribbons through their coiffes, and at Douarnenez they rise high .and severe from the forehead like narrow mitres. It is for religious processions and Pardons that ceremonial aprons and shawls are worn, and a carnival at Nice is scarcely gayer in colour than when these hardy, devout peasants trail along the steep cliff track behind a waxen Madonna, carried aloft on a draped throne.

During the winter when storms whip and lash the boats, and winds fling spume shorewards, the women of necessity keep to their stone cottages; but in summer, when gulls skim over sea-deserted pools, they

gather in groups on the common to knit and gossip and dandle young babies. Blue dyed fishing-nets are spread beside them to dry. We saw an old woman shambling along behind a cow which was tethered to her wrist; she was poor, and having no field, grazed her animal on the sparse grass of the roadside. And then a day came when we climbed the hill out of the town for the last time, and looking back with a farewell glance, saw our boats, like great grey moths in -the dawn, winging their way out to sea.