[1] The name Groac’h, or Grac’h, means literally old woman; and was given to the Druidesses, who had established themselves in an island off the south-west coast of Brittany, called thence the isle of Groac’h; by corruption Groais, or Groix. But the word gradually lost its original meaning of old woman, and came to signify a woman endowed with power over the elements, and dwelling amongst the waves, as did the island Druidesses; in fact, a sort of water-fay, but of a malevolent nature, like all the Breton fairies. Such of our readers as are not acquainted with La Motte Fouqué’s beautiful tale of Undine, may require to be reminded that the sprites, sylphs, gnomes, and fairies of the popular mythologies are not necessarily, perhaps not even generally, exempt from mortality.
[2] A cluster of islets off the southern coast of Brittany, near the headland of Penmarc’h. The name signifies literally summer-land. One of them is called the isle of Lok, or Lock, and contains a fish-pool, from which it seems to derive its name.
[3] A dwarfish sprite.
The Four Gifts.
If I had an income of three hundred crowns, I would go and dwell at Quimper; the finest church in Cornouaille is to be found there, and all the houses have weather-vanes upon their roofs. If I had two hundred crowns a year, I would live at Carhaix, for the sake of its heath-fed sheep and its game. But if I had only one hundred, I would set up housekeeping at Pontaven, for there is the greatest abundance of every thing. At Pontaven they sell butter at the price of milk, chickens for that of eggs, and linen at the same rate as you can buy green flax. So that there are plenty of good farms there, where they dish up salt pork at least three times a week, and where the very shepherds eat as much rye-bread as they desire.
In such a farm lived Barbaik Bourhis, a spirited woman, who had maintained her household like a man, and who had fields and stacks enough to have kept two sons at college.
But Barbaik had only a niece, whose earnings far outweighed her keep, so that every day she laid by as much as she could save.
But savings too easily acquired have always their bad side. If you hoard up wheat, you attract rats into your barns; and if you lay by crowns, you will engender avarice in your heart.
Old Mother Bourhis had come at last to care for nothing but the increase of her hoards, and think nothing of any one who did not happen to pay heavy sums each month to the tax-gatherers. So she was angry when she saw Dénès, the labourer of Plover, chatting with her niece behind the gable. One morning, after thus surprising them, she cried to Tephany in step-mother tones,