Brittany is essentially a romantic country. It is full of mysteries and legends and superstitions. Romance plays a great part in the life of the meanest peasant. Every stock and stone and wayside shrine in his beloved country is invested with poetical superstition and romance. A nurse that we children once had, nineteen years of age, possessed an enormous stock of legends, which she had been brought up to look upon as absolute truth. Some of the songs which she sang to the baby at bedtime in a low minor key were beautiful in composition—'Marie ta fille,' 'Le Biniou,' amongst others. The village schoolmaster, who was our tutor, during our long afternoon rambles would often make the woods ring as he sang ballads in his rich, full voice. The theme changed according to his humour. Now the song was a canticle, relating the legend of some saint, or a pious chronicle; at another time it was of love he sang, generally ending sadly. Then, there was the historical song, recounting some sombre, or touching, or stirring event, when the little man worked himself up to a high pitch of excitement, carrying us children open-mouthed to gory battlefields and the palaces of sumptuous Kings. One quite forgot the insignificant schoolmaster in the rush and swing of the music.

There are many Breton ballads. The lives of the people are reflected truthfully in these compositions, which have as their themes human weakness, or heartache, or happiness. The Breton bards are still a large class. In almost every village there is someone who composes and sings. Each one holds in his or her hand a small stick of white wood, carved with notches and strange signs, which help towards remembering the different verses. The Gauls called this stick, the use of which is very ancient, the alphabet of the bards.

Mendicity is protected in Brittany. One meets beggars at all the fairs, and often on the high-roads. They earn their living by songs and ballads. They attend family fÊtes, and, above all, marriage ceremonies, composing songs in celebration. No Breton will refuse a bard the best of his hospitality. Bards are honoured guests. 'Dieu vous bÉnisse, gens de cette maison,' says one, announcing himself. He is installed in the ingle-nook, the cosiest corner of a Breton kitchen; and after having refreshed the inner man he rewards his host with song after song, often giving him the last ballad of his composition. When he takes his leave, a large bundle of food is slung over his shoulder. Unless you live for years in the same village, as I have done, sharing in the joys and sorrows of the people, you can gain very little knowledge of the tales and songs and legends. The Breton is reticent on the advent of the stranger: he fears ridicule.

Then, again, a child can always wriggle itself into the hearts and homes of people. Setting aside all racial prejudices and difficulties of language, a child will instal itself in a household, and become familiar with the little foibles of each inmate in a single day, whereas a grown-up person may strive in vain for years. I, as a child, had a Breton bonne, and used to spend most of my days at her home, a farm some distance from the village, playing on the cottage floor with her little brothers and sisters, helping to milk the cows, and poking the fat pigs. This, I think, Mother could scarcely have been aware of; for she had forbidden Marie to allow me to associate with dirty children, and these were certainly not too clean. One day I was playing at dolls with a village girl under the balcony of Mother's room. Suddenly, on looking up, I found her gazing at me reproachfully.

'O Mother,' I hastened to explain, pulling the child forward by the pinafore, 'she are clean.' We children were familiar with everyone in the village, even bosom friends with all, from stout Batiste, the butcher, to Lucia the little seamstress, and Leontine her sister, who lived by the bridge. If a child died we attended the funeral, all dressed in white, holding lighted tapers in our hands, and feeling important and impressive. If one was born, we graciously condescended to be present at the baptismal service and receive the boxes of dragÉes always presented to guests on such occasions. At all village processions we figured prominently.

When I returned to Brittany, at the age of ten, I found things very little changed. My friends were a trifle older; but they remembered me and welcomed me, receiving me into their midst as before. My sister and I took part in all the pardons of the surrounding villages. We learnt the quaint Breton dances, and would pace up and down the dusty roads in the full glare of the summer sun hour after hour, dressed in the beautiful costume of the country—black broadcloth skirts, white winged caps, and sabots. Often we would go with our bonne and our respective partners into some neighbouring dÉbits de boissons and drink syrops in true Breton fashion. At one pardon we won the ruban d'honneur—a broad bright-blue ribbon with silver tassels worn across the shoulder, and presented to the best dancer.

The Breton gavotte is a strange dance of religious origin. The dancers hold hands in a long line, advancing and retiring rhythmically to long-drawn-out music. Underneath an awning sit the two professional biniou-players, blowing with all their might into their instruments and beating time with their feet to the measure. The sonneur de biniou is blind, and quite wrapped up in his art; he lives, as it were, in a world apart. The joueur de biniou, the principal figure, reminding one of a Highland piper, presses his elbow on the large leather air-bag, playing the air, with its many variations, clear and sweet, on the reed pipe.

Brittany is the land of pardons. During the summer these local festivities are taking place daily in one village or another. The pardon is a thing apart; it resembles neither the Flemish kermesse nor the Parisian foire. Unlike the foires of Paris, created for the gay world, for the men and women who delight in turning night into day, the pardon has inspiration from high sources: it is the fÊte of the soul. The people gather together from far and near, not only to amuse themselves, but also to pray. They pass long hours before the images of the saints; they make the tour of the 'Chemin de la Croix,' kneeling on the granite floor.

Still, it is a joyous festival. The air is filled with shouts and laughter. For example, in Quimper, at the Feast of the Assumption, the Place St. Corentin is crowded. People have come from the surrounding towns, all dressed in the characteristic costume of their vicinities. Pont-Aven, Pont L'AbbÉ, Concarmeau, Fouesnant, QuimperlÉ—all are represented. You see the tight lace wide-winged cap of the DouarnÉnez women, hats bound with coloured chenile of the men of Carhaix, white flannel coats bordered with black velvet of the peasants of GuÉmÉnÉ, the flowered waistcoats of PleavÉ; the women of Quimper have pyramidical coifs of transparent lace, showing the pink or blue ribbon beneath, with two long floating ends.

The great square in front of the cathedral is a jumble of gold and silver, embroidery, ribbons, muslin, and lace—a joyous feast of colour in the sun. The crowd moves slowly, forming into groups by the porch and round the stalls, with much gossip. The square and the neighbouring streets are bordered by stalls trading in fabrics and faiences, gingerbread, sweets, lotteries, cider, and fancy-work of all kinds. Young men and girls stop in couples to buy mirrors or coloured pins, surmounted with gold, that jingle, to fasten in their caps or in their bodices. Others gather round the lotteries, and watch with anxious eyes the wheel with the rod of metal that clicks all the way round on its spokes, and stops at a certain number. 'C'est vingt-deux qui gagne!' cries the proprietor. A pretty little peasant woman has won. She hesitates, wavering between a ball of golden glass and a vase painted with attractive flowers. The peasants laugh loudly.

There are all kinds of attractions and festivities at the pardons—hurdy-gurdies, swing-boats, voyages to the moon, on which you get your full and terrible money's worth of bumps and alarms; for not only are you jerked up hill and down dale in a car, but also, when you reach the moon, you are whirled round and round at a tremendous rate and return backwards. There are side-shows in which are exhibited fat women, headless men, and bodiless girls, distorted thus by mirrors, the deception of which even we children saw through plainly. There are jugglers and snake-charmers. A cobra was fed on rabbits. We children haunted that tent at feeding-times, and used to watch with fascination the little dead bunnies disappearing, fur and all, afterwards noticing with glee the strange bumps they formed in the animal's smooth and shiny coils. How bloodthirsty children are at heart!

It is not always in large towns like QuimperlÉ that pardons are held. More often they are to be witnessed in the country, perhaps miles away from any town, whence the people flock on foot. There you see no grand cathedral, no magnificent basilicas and superb architecture, but some simple little gray church with moss-grown walls and trees growing thickly about it. The rustic charm of the pardons it is impossible to describe. Round you are immense woods and flowered prairies; in the woods the birds are singing; a mystic vapour of incense fills the air. Peasants gather round this modest house of prayer, which possesses nothing to attract the casual passer-by. The saints that they have come to venerate have no speciality: they heal all troubles, assuage all griefs: they are infallible and all-powerful. Inside the church it is very dim and dark. Not a single candle is alight on the altar; only the lamp of the sanctuary shines out with red gleam like an ever-seeing eye. In the gray darkness of the choir the silent priests cross themselves. They look like ghosts of the faithful. The bells ring out in noisy peals, filling the air with vibrations. Over the fields the people hurry—girls in their smartest clothes, accompanied by their gallants; children brought by their mothers in their beautiful new suits to attend service and to have their faces bathed in the fountain, which cures them of all diseases, and makes them beautiful for ever; old men come to contemplate the joy of the young people, to be peaceful, and to ask forgiveness before leaving this world and the short life over which their own particular saint has watched. The bells peal so loudly that one is afraid they will crack under the efforts of the ringers. Still the people swarm over the fields and into the church, until at last the little edifice is full, and men and women and children are compelled to kneel outside on the hard earth; but the doors are opened, and those outside follow the service with great attention.

One must be a Breton born and cradled in the country in order to realize the important place that the pardon of his parish occupies in the peasant's mind. It is a religious festival of great significance: it is the day above all others on which he confesses his sins to God and receives absolution. Throughout his life his dearest and sweetest thoughts cling round this house of prayer and pardon.

Here it is generally that he betroths himself. He and the girl stroll home together when the sun has set, walking side by side over the fields, holding each other by the little finger, as is the Breton custom. A sweet serenity envelops the countryside; darkness falls; the stars appear. The man is shy; but the girl is at ease. When nearing home, to announce their arrival at the farm, they begin to sing a song that they have heard from the bards during the day. Other couples in the distance, hearing them, take up the refrain; and soon from all parts of the country swells up into the night air a kind of alternate song, in which the high trebles and the deep basses mingle harmoniously. As the darkness deepens the figures disappear and the sounds die away in the distance.

The Saturday before the first Sunday in July is a fÊte-day in most towns. Pilgrims fill the towns, which are packed with stalls for the fair. There are sellers of cider and cakes, amulets, and rosaries. A statue of the Madonna surrounded by archangels against a background of blue is situated at the church door to receive the homage of faithful pilgrims. When night falls the door of the porch is flung open, and a long procession of girls, like an army of phantoms, advances, each penitent holding in her hand a lighted torch, slowly swinging her rosary and repeating a Latin prayer. The statue of the Virgin is solemnly carried out on the open square, where bonfires are lit and young folk dance to the accompaniment of the biniou.

In some places the dances are prolonged for three or four days. The Bretons like songs and dances and representations; they like the heavy pomp of pilgrimages; they believe in prayer, and never lose their respect for the Cross. They are a fine people, especially the men who live by the sea, sailors and fishermen—well-made, high-strung men, their faces bronzed and stained like sculptures out of old chestnut, with eyes of clear blue, full of the sadness of the sea. They have an air of robustness and vitality; but under their fierce exterior they hide a great sweetness of nature. They are kind hosts; they are frank, brave, and chaste. They have, it is true, a weakness: on fair days—market-days especially—they abuse the terrible and brutalizing vin du feu. Then, the Bretons are not a very clean people. The interiors of the cottages are dignified, with great beds made of dark chestnut and long, narrow tables, stretching the whole length of the rooms, polished and beeswaxed until you can see your face mirrored on the surface; but pigs will repose on the stone floor, which waves up and down with indentations and deep holes. The more well-to-do Bretons have their clothes washed only once in six months. The soiled linen is kept above in an attic protected from the rats by a rope with broken bottles strung on it, on which the rats, as they come to gnaw the clothes, commit involuntary suicide.

The poorer families have better habits. They wash their few possessions regularly and out of doors in large pools constructed for the purpose, where hundreds of women congregate, kneeling on the flagstones around the pond, beating their linen energetically on boards, with a flat wooden tool, to economize soap. This I consider a far cleaner method than that of our British cottagers, who wash their clothes in their one living-room, inhaling impure steam.

In spite of the winds and the tempests which desolate it, the Bretons love their country. They live in liberty; they are their own masters. The past holds profound and tenacious root in the hearts of these men of granite, and the attachment to old beliefs is strong. The people still believe in miracles, in sorcery, and in the evil eye. The land, rich with memories of many kinds,—with its menhirs, its old cathedrals, its pilgrimages, its pardons—sleeps peacefully in this century of innovations. In Brittany everything seems to have been designed long ago. Wherever one goes one comes across a strange and ancient Druidical monument, menhirs, and dolmens of fabulous antiquity, an exquisite legend, a ruined chÂteau, ancient stone crosses, calvaires, and carvings. It is a country full of signs and meanings. The poetical superstitions and legends have been left intact in their primitive simplicity. Nowhere do you see finer peasantry; nowhere more dignity and nobility in the features of the men and women who work in the fields; nowhere such quaint houses and costumes; hardly anywhere more magnificent scenery. You have verdant islands, ancient forests, villages nestling in the mountains, country as wild and beautiful as the moors of Scotland, fields and pasture-lands as highly cultivated as those of Lincolnshire.

Brittany is especially inspiring to the painter. You find villages in which the people still wear the national dress. Perhaps, however, the time is not far distant when new customs will arise and the old beliefs will be only a remembrance. Little by little the influence of modern times begins to show itself upon the language, the costume, and the poetic superstitions. The iron and undecorative hand of the twentieth century is closing down upon the country.

BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS, GUILDFORD