LEGENDS OF BRITTANY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 July 1938, Page 9

LEGENDS OF BRITTANY

TIME-HONOURED CUSTOMS. Wherever you find a Celt there you will find a legend, and Brittany is no exception to the rule. On the contrary, here every village, every cross-roads seems to have its own particular legend or stock of strange stories of the supernatural. In the environs of Josselin, where there is one of the most magnificent castles of Brittany, the land is left untouched during Holy Week, for during that time it is believed that the earch bleeds and suffers if iron is thrust into it. The inhabitants of Requiny, on All Souls day, make the evening meal of chestnuts. They believe that as many chestnuts as they eat so many souls escape from purgatory. Brittany, like Ireland, has its “little people,” and there is often rivalry between them. Where the railway crosses a stream at Villebouquais, a line of huge boulders stretches over the countryside like cyclopean foundations of a gigantic wall. The peasants have an explanation for this strange line of stones. They tell you that the elves of Bezon taunted the fairies for their weak bodies. The fairies determined to give them a lesson, and one day the scoffing elves were astounded to see the. fairies in a long line, each staggering beneath the load of an enormous stone. They set the stones one upon the other in a line, and there they lie today to confound all those who do not believe that fairies can be as strong as elves.