The publication in 1859 of Count Hersart de VillemarquÉ's Barzaz Breiz, or collection of ancient Breton ballads and folk-songs, excited almost as much interest in the literary world as Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry a century earlier, if not reaching to the point of that evoked by Macpherson's Ossian. The interest was historical and ethnological as well as literary. Here were historical ballads, full of fire and passion and pathos, dealing not alone with such comparatively recent and recognized historic figures as Bernard du Guesclin and Jean de Montfort, but dating back to the sixth century and earlier, having for definite characters Merlin and King Arthur, and containing distinct traces of Druidic and bardic influence, which had been preserved, not in manuscript, as were the remains of Celtic poetry in Wales and Ireland, but by oral tradition and as a part of the still living folk-poetry of the people. It was no wonder that great interest was excited by the apparent evidence that a people living in the midst of European civilization had preserved an unbroken tradition of popular poetry for thirteen centuries, with strong traces of heathen influence extending back much farther, in almost absolute purity of language and definite historic characterization, and it was regarded from an ethnologic point of view as of hardly less importance than the discoveries of the remains of the Lake dwellers and other tokens of the existence of prehistoric man. Apparent credibility was given to the authenticity of the collection by the fact that the Breton people had preserved their language in its native condition and form, and by their customs, dress, and manner of life were marked off from the rest of the French people by a distinct line, which showed the strength, originality, and persistence of the race. It was known that they retained the original characteristics of the Celtic race, its fervency of religious faith, its melancholy, its sensitiveness to the mysterious influences of nature, its passion and its loyalty, and that many of its customs and habits of life were distinct survivals of mediÆvalism, and utterly anomalous to the spirit of modern civilization. It was therefore not thought impossible, if extraordinary, that the ancient ballads should have been preserved in their original purity, and the compositions of the ancient bards and minstrels still remain to be collected from the lips of the wandering mendicant singers, who gathered audiences about them at Fairs and Pardons, or lightened the gloom of the winter evenings in the farm kitchens with song and legend. The character of the ballads in Villemarque's collection was singularly well adapted to produce this belief. They were simple in construction, impregnated with the characteristics of the people, their faith, their loyalty, their purity and gravity of thought, their subjection to the influence of the supernatural, and their devoted patriotism, and, aside from their genuine strength and elevation as poetry, were a faithful reflection of the thoughts and habits of their people, and of the authentic facts of their history. There were no signs of such incongruous piecing of the thoughts of a later civilization and the style of a later literature upon an ancient substance, as were visible in Bishop Percy's emendations and completions of the English and Scottish ballads, but they were complete and homogeneous in the very spirit and language of ancient poetry. As a consequence, they were not only accepted as genuine and authentic, but there was an immense interest created in the study and revival of the Breton language and literature, and an appreciation of the characteristics and influence of the Celtic race in France, which has continued and deepened to the present time. An academy was founded, with M. de VillemarquÉ for its president, and assemblies of bards and scholars were held like the Welsh Eistedfodds, and there was a temporary Breton rage like that for the Highland Scotch under the influence of the Waverley novels, although no ruler of France went so far as to appear in the Breton hat and waistcoat, as George the Fourth did in the Highland kilt during his visit to Edinburgh. Several translations of the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz appeared in German, and Mr. Tom Taylor rendered them into English, in a version singularly compounded of archaic phraseology and stage rhetoric. But the later investigation of careful and conscientious collectors of Breton folkpoetry, like M. F. M. Luzel and others, has destroyed the faith in the authenticity of M. YillemarquÉ's ballads almost as completely as in that of Macpherson's Ossian. They are not to be found in existence among the present singers or the survivors of the generation from whom M. VillemarquÉ professed to have gathered them, except in a very mutilated form, and with most of their flowers of poetry ruthlessly swept away. Experiments have been tried at gatherings of the most famous depositories of folk-poetry and the most accomplished singers, by repeating the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz to them, but they have in all cases either professed total ignorance, or insisted upon such amendments as deprived them of all but the faintest resemblance; while the only occasions in which they have been heard sung by the peasantry have been traced to the scattered leaves of the book itself. A hot literary controversy has been waged over the authenticity of M. VillemarquÉ's ballads, but the best opinion has settled into the belief that they are fabrications and reconstructions from fragments not more authentic and genuine than those which were the basis of Macpherson's Ossian or Chatterton's poems of Rowley, although M. VillemarquÉ was as thoroughly possessed with the spirit of Breton poetry, and as saturated with the knowledge of Breton history, as Sir Walter Scott was with Scottish poetry and Scottish history, and in one sense they were as genuine as the ballads of The Baron of Smalholme and Thomas the Rhymer. But the idea that the contemporary poems relating to Merlin and King Arthur, and even those of the exploits of Du Guesclin and The Combat of the Thirty, had been preserved in faithful and uncorrupted condition by oral tradition, and were still a portion of the folk-songs of the Breton peasantry, to say nothing of the survival of Druidic poetry and tradition in a distinct form, attractive as it is to the historic imagination, must be given up, like the belief in the survival of the epic of Fingal.

It does not do to expect too much from folkpoetry in the way of the perpetuation of history.

Like the remains of prehistoric people buried in geologic strata, it has been subject to the inevitable destruction of natural forces and to the attrition of time, and only remains like the fragments of implements and the piles of kitchen middens, from which careful study can extract the evidences of former existence and habits. It is only when ancient poetry has been committed to writing, like the poems of Homer and the Scandinavian sagas, that it can be preserved in anything like a complete state; and while there is a singular tenacity in popular poetry, it cannot endure for centuries by oral tradition alone, however secluded the people or however strong their national and poetic spirit. Sir Walter Scott was only just in time to save the Border ballads of the previous two centuries, and the usual duration of popular ballads in anything but an indistinct and fragmentary condition is even less. But, although the authenticity of the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz is discredited, it cannot be said that there is no genuine and valuable Breton folk-song. On the contrary, it exists in very great quantity and of a high quality, not only as poetry, but as illustrating the character and history of the people. The Breton race is not only a profoundly poetical one, by its pensive, mystic, and deeply religious character, but by its secluded condition apart from the currents of modern education, and its occupations in the gloomy, wind-swept, and rain-beaten fields and on the mysterious and terrifying seas, is particularly subject to the influences which make folk-song a part of its life and the natural expression of its thoughts and emotions. Nor is its folk-poetry entirely without value in the strictly historical sense, although anything like absolute accuracy or the definite remains of contemporary historic verse are not to be expected. As in the extant folk-lore of other nations, the roots run far back, and evidences of the traditions and customs of former ages survive in a fragmentary and altered state, in which may be traced the tokens of the existence of the race in the earliest dawn of history and even before any known records. Thus, if there are no authentic poems of the time of Merlin and King Arthur in the Breton folk-songs of the present day, their names and traditions survive; and, if the school culture of the Druids does not survive in the poems of numeral questions on the characters and events of the Bible, as imagined or invented by M. VillemarquÉ, no less fragments of their customs and worship remain in the habits and traditions of the people in and outside of their religious ritual, and are perpetuated in their folk-songs, if with as little definite knowledge as of the rites once performed at the feet of the dolmens or in the temple of Karnac. The fairies, and the dwarfs, and the spirits of the sea and air still survive, and are dreaded or invoked in the same spirit, if with less fervency than the saints and powers of the Church. Thus M. Paul Sebillot, in his Contes des Marins, gathered in Upper Brittany, tells that the sailors shake their fists at and threaten with their knives an unfavorable wind, and there are numerous actual customs as well as traditions among the Breton people which are evident survivals from heathen ages, while the rites of the Church itself have many traces of the adoption of forms of nature worship. This element of the supernatural, like the traditions of actual history, is fading away in Brittany as in all other countries, but enough remains to throw a strong light on the ancient customs, as well as the fundamental character of the race, and to inform its folk-poetry with this element to a degree which that of few modern nations possesses.

The interest of modern folk-poetry is, however, mainly in quality as poetry, its expression with eloquence and feeling of the emotions of the human heart, and the representation which it gives of the quality of the mind, the temperament, the degree of intelligence, and the habits and customs of the people who produced it. In this view the two latest volumes of the collection of Breton folksongs by F. M. Luzel, Sonniou Breiz-Izel (Paris.

Emile Bouillon, 1890), are particularly interesting. His two previous volumes, Gwerzion Breiz-Izel, were devoted to the fantastic, supernatural, and tragic ballads which held a place by the side of the fabulous tales in the minds of the people, were derived from the remote past, and had little connection with the life of to-day. On the contrary, the Sonniou, for which songs is the somewhat imperfect equivalent in English, are the immediate interpretation of their thoughts and emotions, the transcripts of their present life, and its events, sung and told by living poets, or those who have lived within a time to make them a part of the present people. They include the songs which are sung by the cradles to drowsing infants, the hopes and sorrows of love, the joyous welcomes to weddings, the homely pains of married life, and the sorrows for the common lot of death, the chants of religious faith and worship, the charms against diseases, the accompaniments of labor and the peculiarities of trade and occupation, the homely reflections on the conduct of life, and the rustic humor and satire, and, in short, all the thoughts and events, which mark the daily life of the people. Of their absolute genuineness there can be no question. They have all the internal evidence in their construction and language, the simplicity and abruptness of thought, the imperfection of utterance combined with untaught eloquence and strength, the occasional vulgarity by the side of an equally great delicacy, the simple and powerful melody, and all the characteristics of popular poetry, which are as unmistakable as the perfumes of the flowers of the field. Their collection has been the work of forty-five years, in which M. Luzel has indefatigably traversed the provinces of Lower Brittany, visiting the solitary huts of the sabot makers and hemp-weavers, colloquing with wandering beggars, listening to the songs and stories at the kitchen firesides of lonely farms in winter, gathering the singers at the Fair around him in the tap-rooms, taking down the songs of nursing mothers, the sailors on shipboard and the soldiers in the barracks, the shepherds on the plains and the laborers in the fields, and, in short, gathering every form of verse which is the expression of the popular thoughts and emotions. They are naturally of less purely literary merit than the ballads of the Barzaz Breiz, which are carefully arranged, trimmed, and decorated for poetical effect. It is always a sign for suspicion when folk-poetry is too good. The picturesque garments of the Breton peasantry must show the signs of actual wear and even the stains of grease and dirt, if they are to have the genuine effect, and when they are of too fine material, too carefully arranged, and shining and spotless, the impression is that they are simply stage costumes drawn from the theatrical wardrobe. Even the beggar with his rags too artistically draped suggests the painter's model. So there must be the element of reality in their defects before the folk-songs can be accepted as really genuine, and it adds a power and even a literary effect to them, which in its peculiar flavor the most accomplished literary art cannot produce. We seem to hear the speech of living men, to feel the thoughts of simple hearts through the imperfect utterance, and to experience all the flavor of actual and homely life. The pieces in the Sonniou collected by M. Luzel have all this quality. They have the coarse material and the patches of garments actually worn, and their charm is due to their native picturesqueness and originality. There is no false sentiment, however deep the feeling, and the homely thoughts are expressed in homely phrases, with natural imagery drawn from the aspect of nature about them and their avocations in life. Their standard of conventionality in speech differs from that of polite society, and there are words and phrases which smack of a coarse and natural life, but they are, nevertheless, singularly pure in thought, and show the soundness and honesty of the Breton character, as well as its tenderness and warmth of affection. If not great refinement, there is great depth of feeling, and actual vulgarity of thought is as rare as immoral suggestion, even in the rude satires and humorous narratives.

The beginning of all folk-song is in the cooing melodies which the mothers chant by the inspiration of nature by the cradles of their drowsing infants, and in which the affections of their hearts take an articulate form as naturally as the songs of birds. The berceuses, or cradle songs, of the Breton peasantry have all the elements of deep feeling and childish simplicity of expression which characterize the voice of motherhood in every clime and every station in life, and unite the queen and the peasant in a common bond. The same lovely and touching images suggest themselves, and the same simple and soothing melody flows naturally from the lips. This Breton cradle song might find its parallel in thought and language in many nations:—