CHAPTER I.
IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS.
In the year 818, seven years after Amael and his grandson Vortigern left the court of Charles, the Emperor of the Franks, to return to their home in Brittany, three riders, accompanied by a footman, were one evening painfully climbing one of the steep hills of the ridge of the Black Mountains, that raise their rugged ribs to the southwest of Armorica. When, having reached the top of the rocky pile over which the path wound its way, the travelers looked below, they saw at their feet a long chain of plains and hillocks, some covered with rye and wheat ready for the harvesters, others running northward like vast carpets of heather. Here and yonder, vast moors also were perceived stretching out as far as the eye could follow. A few straggling villages, reached by an avenue of trees, raised the roofs of their houses in the midst of impassible bogs that served for natural defences. The panorama was enlivened by herds of black sheep that browsed over the ruddy heath or the green valleys, watered by innumerable running streams. Among the green were also seen steers and cows, and especially a large number of horses of the Breton stock, strong for the plow, fiery in war.
The three riders, preceded by the footman, now proceeded to descend the further slope of the rugged hill. One of the three, clad in ecclesiastical robes, was Witchaire, considered one of the richest abbots of Gaul. The vast lands of his almost royal abbey bordered on the frontiers of Armorica. His two companions, on horseback like himself, were monks belonging to his dependency, and both wore the garb of the religious Order of St. Benoit. The two monks rode behind the abbot at a little distance, leading between them a packsaddle mule loaded with the baggage of their superior, a man of short stature, sharp eye, and a smile that was at times pious, at other times cunning. The mountain guide, a robust, thick-set man in the vigor of life, wore the antique costume of the Breton Gauls—wide breeches of cloth held at the waist by a leather belt, a jacket of wool, and, hanging from his shoulders on the same side with his wallet, a cloak of goat-skin, although the season was summer. His hair, only partly covered with a woolen cap, fell over his shoulders. From time to time he leaned upon his pen-bas, a long staff made of holly and terminating in a crook.
The burning August sun, now at its hottest, darted its rays upon the guide, the two monks and Abbot Witchaire. Reining in his horse, the latter said to the guide:
"The heat is suffocating; these granite rocks radiate it upon us as hot as if they issued from a furnace; our mounts are exhausted. I decry yonder, at our feet, a thick forest; could you not lead us to it? We could then take rest in the shade."
Karouer, the guide, shook his head, and answered, pointing with his pen-bas in the direction of the dense woods: "To reach them we would have to make a leap of two hundred feet, or a circuit of nearly three leagues over the mountains. Which shall it be?"
"Let us, then, pursue our route, my trusty guide. But tell us how long will it take us to arrive in the valley of Lokfern?"
"Look yonder, below, away below, close to the horizon. Do you see the last of those bluish crests? That is the Menez-c'Hom, the highest peak of the Black Mountains. The other peak towards the west, and lying somewhat nearer, is Lach-Renan. It is between those two peaks that lies the valley of Lokfern, where Morvan, the husbandman and Chief of Brittany lives."