Breton Folk: An artistic tour in Brittany

by Henry Blackburn

It is too late to cross the bay on the occasion of our visit to Plougastel, and so we take the last train to Kerhuon station, where there is a ferry. A vessel has just been paid off at Brest, and in the railway carriage are several sailors on their way home. One of them gets out with us at Kerhuon, and we go down together to the river. By some mischance the ferry-boat is missing, and all is darkness at the little boathouse. The young sailor, ready at expedients, puts down his pack, collects some furze, and lights a fire as a signal. We sit and wait and shout at intervals, burning the fuel until just about midnight, when we hear the plash of oars, and a dark object glides past; it is a fishing-boat with one mast, with three men in the stern, and two women rowing. After a little parleying they agree to take us across for thirty centimes each, and the women turn the boat round, running it heavily against the stones of the causeway. We get in quickly and stand in the bows, whilst we silently cross the Landerneau river. It is a strange, mysterious boat-load; not a word is uttered, there is no sound but the heavy plodding and working of the oars, and the night is so dark we cannot see the faces of the men or the nature of the packages that weigh down the stern. The moon, rising through the clouds, just illumines the darkness as we near the shore; it shines on the smooth, wet mast, on the waterproof hat of the marine standing up in the boat, and reveals close to us the strong, stout arms of a girl, bared to the shoulder, her head concealed in a dark, tight-fitting headdress, with lappets like an Egyptian sphynx; the head is raised for a moment, and eyes are turned upon us as we leave, but no word is uttered, scarcely a “Bon soir!” as the boat drifts away into the night.

The moon shines as we ascend the hill—winding up a path between great rocks and under the shadow of stunted trees, to Plougastel—revealing a poor-looking town of plain stone houses, silent and deserted at this midnight hour. At a corner of two streets our companion points out the inn and takes leave, having to go to his home at the further end of the town. We knock for admittance, but without avail; heads are put out of various windows, but the answer is that every house is crowded, for “to-morrow is the fête”; and, truth to tell, curses are heaped upon the strangers for disturbing the dogs, who begin to howl as they trot by on their midnight errands. There is nothing to be done until daybreak, and so the night is spent in the open air.

We have come to Plougastel to see the people, and also its famous calvary, which stands in the middle of a desolate churchyard strewn with newly cut stone. As the day begins to dawn, we make our way to the church, and to the spot where we can just discern the calvary, with its carved figures standing darkly against the sky. There is a flutter at our approach, for birds have been nestling behind the headless horsemen, and sheltering in the nooks and corners of the ancient pile. We leave them to silence a little longer, and stroll out to the highest ground to see the sun rise. Soon there is a streak of light from the east, which gives shape and outline to the church tower and the grey roofs of Plougastel, and, as we reach the high ground outside the town, the landscape southward is lighting in the morning sun; we see cultivated valleys and parklike views, with pleasant green slopes leading down to the sea. But beautiful as is the foreground, with its undulating green, interspersed with granite boulders, with dew upon gossamer webs and little clouds of vapour stealing between clumps of grass, the view across the bay, where the distant headlands (indicated on the map overleaf) take a pearly tinge, is the best sight of all. A little northward and westward are the masts, chimneys, and church spires, and the smoke and steam, of Brest, for the morning is breaking over a busy scene at the arsenal and dockyards; but here, as the sun shines out, the sound in the long grass are of grasshoppers, birds, and bees.

It is the morning of the fête; the thrush clears his throat, and so do the peasants in their own way, as they come slowly up the hill. Let us leave the view and go into the streets of Plougastel, which are already alive with people, some of whom might be the descendants of Eastern races, wearing Egyptian or Phrygian headdresses, caps from Albania, embroideries from Greece, and sashes from Arabia. Here, then, for the first time in our travels, we find colour predominating in the costumes of the people. Some of the women wear close-fitting dark green caps embroidered with gold thread, their dark skirts also bordered with embroideries or stripes of colour; some wear white stockings and neat-fitting, red or black, slippers or shoes. But the prevailing headdress of the women is the white cambric coiffe with large side lappets and wide collars which we see elsewhere in Finistère; the men have broad-brimmed hats with embroidered strings or ribbons. Some of the men who come from the south wear striped trousers with a red sash, and spare blue jacket with numerous silver buttons, as in the sketch opposite. Some are dressed entirely in blue cloth or serge, with sashes and red caps, but others have broad white trousers and belts, their jackets and blouses embroidered on the shoulders and sleeves. There is colour everywhere, subdued by the dark blue of blouses and the sober brown and green stuff gowns of the older women.

It is said that the people of Plougastel, preserving their old costumes and traditions, still live much apart from their neighbours; a life half seafaring, half agricultural, whose origin is traced to some early immigration of Eastern races. By ten o’clock hundreds of people have come in from the neighbouring villages, and as they all crowd together at the church door and in the square round the calvary, we see the strangest medley of costumes in all Brittany. They collect round the calvary, some praying, some quarrelling or bargaining for small wares; a general place of rendezvous on fête-days, especially on the 24th of June (the Feast of St. Jean, called the “Pardon of Birds”), when a large number of birds are offered for sale. This is a good day to see the costumes of the peasants, to hear their songs, and to see the dances in the streets of Plougastel.

The calvary was erected about the year 1602, and some of the figures are as sharp and clear as if carved yesterday; some are headless, and otherwise injured or destroyed. Around the three elevated crosses are a series of bas-reliefs, full-length figures cut in Kersanton stone, depicting various incidents in New Testament history—the Entry into Jerusalem, Christ teaching among the Doctors, the Offerings of the Magi, the Baptism of St. John, the Entombment, &c. On the south side is a representation of the Bearing of the Cross, on the north is the Judgment of Pilate, and so on. Some of the figures are very expressive, some have a certain quaintness and humour, and here and there we detect the same anachronisms in costume as at St. Thégonnec, where the Breton costume is introduced.

Altogether we must regard the calvary of Plougastel as a curiosity rather than as a great work of art; a grotesque group which, in its dark rugged outline set against the sky, will be remembered by travellers as something peculiar to Brittany, something which, in this land of strange mediæval monuments and relics, is yet perhaps the strangest sight of all.[^[6]]

[6]. See sketch of a calvary on page [91].

Returning to Daoulas, we join the high-road between Landerneau and Quimper, and pass southwards along the inland shores of the bay of Brest to Châteaulin. As travellers speed through this district by railway, they get glimpses, on the left hand, of the forest of Guimerch, and on the right, through the tree-tops, of inlets of the bay, and of the ancient little town of Le Faou, lying as it were at their feet.