Over this wild, heathy track, covered with the blue flowers of the dwarf gentian, steals a subtle change. Nor air nor heath has altered. The lichen-covered grey stones are the same. Suddenly there arises the burden of a low, fierce chant. A swarm of skin-clad figures appears, clustering around a gigantic object 44 which they are painfully dragging toward a deep pit situated at the end of one of the enormous alleys of monoliths. On rudely shaped rollers rests a huge stone some twenty feet in length, and this they drag across the rough moor by ropes of hide, lightening their labours by the chant, which relates the exploits of the warrior-chief who has lately been entombed in this vast pantheon of Carnac. The menhir shall serve for his headstone. It has been vowed to him by the warriors of his tribe, his henchmen, who have fought and hunted beside him, and who revere his memory. This stone shall render his fame immortal.
And now the task of placing the huge monolith in position begins. Ropes are attached to one extremity, and while a line of brawny savages strains to raise this, others guide that end of the monolith destined for enclosure in the earth toward the pit which has been dug for its reception. Higher and higher rises the stone, until at last it sinks slowly into its earthy bed. It is held in an upright position while the soil is packed around it and it is made secure. Then the barbarians stand back a space and gaze at it from beneath their low brows, well pleased with their handiwork. He whom they honoured in life rests not unrecognized in death.
RAISING A MENHIR
The Legend of Carnac
The legend of Carnac which explains these avenues of monoliths bears a resemblance to the Cornish story of ‘the Hurlers,’ who were turned into stone for playing at hurling on the Lord’s Day, or to that other English example from Cumberland of ‘Long Meg’ and her daughters. St Cornely, we are told, pursued by an 45 army of pagans, fled toward the sea. Finding no boat at hand, and on the point of being taken, he transformed his pursuers into stones, the present monoliths.
The Saint had made his flight to the coast in a bullock-cart, and perhaps for this reason he is now regarded as the patron of cattle. Should a bullock fall sick, his owner purchases an image of St Cornely and hangs it up in the stable until the animal recovers. The church at Carnac contains a series of fresco paintings which outline events in the life of the Saint, and in the churchyard there is a representation of the holy man between two bullocks. The head of St Cornely is said to be preserved within the edifice as a relic. On the 13th of September is held at Carnac the festival of the ‘Benediction of the Beasts,’ which is celebrated in honour of St Cornely. The cattle of the district are brought to the vicinity of the church and blessed by the priests—should sufficient monetary encouragement be forthcoming.
Mont-Saint-Michel
In the neighbourhood is Mont-Saint-Michel,[10] a great tumulus with a sepulchral dolmen, first excavated in 1862, when late Stone Age implements, jade celts, and burnt bones were unearthed. Later M. Zacharie Le Rouzic, the well-known Breton archæologist, tunnelled into the tumulus, and discovered a mortuary chamber, in which were the incinerated remains of two oxen. To this tumulus each pilgrim added a stone or small quantity of earth, as has been the custom in Celtic countries from time immemorial, and so the funerary mound in the course of countless generations grew into 46 quite a respectable hill, on which a chapel was built, dedicated to St Michael, from the doorway of which a splendid prospect of the great stone alignments can be had, with, for background, the Morbihan and the long, dreary peninsula of Quiberon, bleak, treeless, and deserted.