Legends & Romances of Brittany Part 26

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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed through 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 h.e.l.lean.

"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 Villemarque 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 of _Percival 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 the _chansons de gestes_, which celebrated the deeds of Charlemagne and his 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.

_The Ballad of Bran_

A sorrowful and touching ballad, claimed by Villemarque as being sung in the Breton dialect of Leon, tells of the warrior Bran, who was wounded in the great fight of Kerlouan, a village situated on the coast of Leon, in the tenth century. The coast was raided by the Nors.e.m.e.n, and the Bretons, led by their chief, Even the Great, marched against them and succeeded in repelling them. The Nors.e.m.e.n, 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 seash.o.r.e, 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 Nors.e.m.e.n 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 in my 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 Leon 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 he had been imprisoned. She asked of the people: "Why do the bells sound?"

"Alas! lady," said an ancient man, "a n.o.ble 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 sh.o.r.e and which marks the place where the Nors.e.m.e.n 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 in Brittany."

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 of _Sir 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's _bona-fides_, a perfidious gaoler, and the idea of the black or white sail. The original poem of _Sir Tristrem_ was 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 subst.i.tuted for a lover, and the ancient Breton dame takes the place of Ysonde. There is, indeed, little difference between the pa.s.sage which relates the arrival of the mother in the Nors.e.m.e.n'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 pa.s.sage," says Villemarque, with wonderful _sang-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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sage 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 was always 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 the _biniou_, or bagpipe, just as the _clairschach_, or Highland harp, was replaced by the same instrument in the Highlands of Scotland.

_Fontenelle_

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 Orleans, 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 Leon, carrying away the daughter of the Lady of Coadelan, a wealthy heiress, who was only about eight or nine years of age. This occurrence Villemarque has related for us in Breton verse, a.s.suring 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 G.o.d, do not go, husband, for if you do you will never return."

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 coa.r.s.e 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 Ma.s.s may say, 'G.o.d have mercy on the soul of Fontenelle.'"