The rond is a sort of dance in which the whole assembly joins hands and revolves slowly with a hop-skip-and-a-jump step to the accompaniment of a most wearisome and unvarying chant, the music for which is provided by the biniou, or bagpipe, and the flageolet or hautboy, both being occasionally augmented by the drum. Before the ceremony begins the musicians who are responsible for this primitive harmony are dispatched to summon the guests, who, of course, arrive in the full splendour of the national gala costume. As soon as the ronds are completed to the satisfaction of everybody the custom common to so many countries of stealing the bride away is celebrated. At a given signal she speeds away from the party, hotly pursued by the young gallants present, and when she is overtaken she presents the successful swain with a cup of coffee at a public café. This interlude is followed by dinner, and after that the ronds are resumed. These festivities, in the case of prosperous people, sometimes last three days, during which time the guests are entertained at their host’s expense. If the wedding happens to be held in the evening, dancing is about the only amusement indulged in, and this follows an elaborate wedding supper. The biniou and its companions are decidedly en évidence, while sometimes the monotony of the ronds is varied by the grand rond, a much more graceful and intricate affair, containing many elaborate and difficult steps; but the more ordinary dance is the favourite, probably because of the difficulties attending the other.
Breton Burials
An ancient Breton funeral ceremony was replete with symbolic meaning and ritual, which have been carried 387 down through the Middle Ages to the present time. As soon as the head of the family had ceased to breathe, a great fire was lit in the courtyard, and the mattress upon which he had expired was burned. Pitchers of water and milk were emptied, for fear, perhaps, that the soul of the defunct might be athirst. The dead man was then enveloped from head to foot in a great white sheet and placed in a description of funeral pavilion, the hands joined on the breast, the body turned toward the east. At his feet a little stool was placed, and two yellow candles were lit on each side of him. Then the beadle or gravedigger, who was usually a poor man, went round the country-side to carry the news of death, which he usually called out in a high, piping voice, ringing his little bell the while. At the hour of sunset people arrived from all parts for the purpose of viewing the body. Each one carried a branch, which he placed on the feet of the defunct.
The evening prayer was recited by all, then the women sang the canticles. From time to time the widow and children of the deceased raised the corner of the shroud and kissed it solemnly. A repast was served in an adjoining room, where the beggar sat side by side with the wealthy, on the principle that all were equal before death. It is strange that the poor are always associated with the griefs as with the pleasures of Breton people; we find them at the feast of death and at the baptism as at the wedding rejoicing.
In the morning the rector of the parish arrived and all retired, with the exception of the parents, if these chanced to be alive, in whose presence the beadle closed the coffin. No other member of the family 388 was permitted to take part in this solemn farewell, which was regarded as a sacred duty. The coffin was then placed on a car drawn by oxen, and the funeral procession set out, preceded by the clergy and followed by the female relations of the deceased, wearing yellow head-dresses and black mantles. The men followed with bared heads. On arriving at the church the coffin was disposed on trestles, and the widow sat close by it throughout the ceremony. As it was lowered into the tomb the last words of the prayer for the dead were repeated by all, and as it touched the soil beneath a loud cry arose from the bereaved.
The Breton funeral ceremony, like those prevalent among other Celtic peoples, is indeed a lugubrious affair, and somewhat recalls the Irish wake in its strange mixture of mourning and feasting; but curiously enough brightness reigns afterward, for the peasant is absolutely assured that at the moment his friend is placed in the tomb he commences a life of joy without end.
Tartarus and Paradise
Two very striking old Breton ballads give us very vivid pictures of the Breton idea of Heaven and its opposite. That dealing with the infernal regions hails from the district of Léon. It is attributed to a priest named Morin, who flourished in the fifteenth century, but others have claimed it for a Jesuit father called Maunoir, who lived and preached some two hundred years later. In any case it bears the ecclesiastical stamp. “Descend, Christians,” it begins, “to see what unspeakable tortures the souls of the condemned suffer through the justice of God, Who has chained them in the midst of flames for 389 having abused their gifts in this world. Hell is a profound abyss, full of shadow, where not the least gleam of light ever comes. The gates have been closed and bolted by God, and He will never open them more. The key is lost!
“An oven heated to whiteness is this place, a fire which constantly devours the lost souls. There they will eternally burn, tormented by the intolerable heat. They gnash their teeth like mad dogs; they cannot escape the flames, which are over their heads, under their feet, and on all sides. The son rushes at his father, and the daughter at her mother. They drag them by the hair through the midst of flames, with a thousand maledictions, crying, ‘Cursed be ye, lost woman, who brought us into the world! Cursed be ye, heedless man, who wert the cause of our damnation!’
“For drink they have only their tears. Their skins are scorched, and bitten by the teeth of serpents and demons, and their flesh and their bones are nothing but fuel to the great fire of Hell!