“If you are the Queen of Heaven, make them render me my dues,” said Matelinn audaciously.
“Listen to me,” said Mary. “You first, Mao, and you, Liçzenn, come near me with your new-born child. Till now I have given you the joys of life; I will do more, and give you for the future the delights of death. You shall follow me into the Paradise of my Son, where neither griefs, nor treachery, nor sicknesses can enter. As for you, Goliath, you have a right to share the new benefit conferred on them; and you, like them, shall die, but only to go down twelve hundred and fifty leagues below the surface of the earth,[2] into the kingdom of the wicked one, whose servant you are.”
Saying these words, the Holy Mary raised her hand on high, and the giant was buried in a gulf of fire; whilst the young husband, with his wife and child, sank gently towards each other as in peaceful sleep, and disappeared, borne upwards on a cloud.
[1] In many farms there is a small threshing-floor reserved especially for black wheat.
[2] This is the exact distance at which the Bretons define Hell to lie.
Keris.
In the olden times a king named Grallon reigned over the land of Cornouaille. He was as good a man as any son of Adam, and gave a cordial welcome at his court to all who had in any way distinguished themselves, were they plebeian or noble in their birth. Unfortunately his daughter was an ill-conducted princess, who, in order to evade his parental rule, had taken herself off to live at Keris, some few leagues from Quimper.
One day, whilst King Grallon was out hunting in a forest at the foot of Menéhom, he and all his followers lost their way, and came at last before the cell of the holy hermit Corentin. Grallon had often heard tell of this saintly man, and was delighted to find he had discovered his retreat; but as for the attendants, who were dying with hunger, they looked with any thing but satisfaction upon the humble cell, and whispered discontentedly amongst themselves that they should certainly have to sup on pious prayers.