The folk-beliefs attached to the megalithic monuments 49 of Brittany are numerous, but nearly all of them bear a strong resemblance to each other. Many of the monuments are called Grottes aux Fées or Roches aux Fées, in the belief that the fairies either built them or used them as dwelling-places, and variants of these names are to be found in the Maison des Follets (‘House of the Goblins’) at Cancoet, in Morbihan, and the Château des Paulpiquets, in Questembert, in the same district. Ty en Corygannt (‘The House of the Korrigans’) is situated in the same department, while near Penmarch, in Finistère, at the other end of the province, we find Ty C’harriquet (‘The House of the Gorics’ or ‘Nains’). Other mythical personages are also credited with their erection, most frequently either the devil or Gargantua being held responsible for their miraculous creation. The phenomenon, well known to students of folk-lore, that an unlettered people speedily forgets the origin of monuments that its predecessors may have raised in times past is well exemplified in Brittany, whose peasant-folk are usually surprised, if not amused, at the question “Who built the dolmens?” Close familiarity with and contiguity to uncommon objects not infrequently dulls the sense of wonder they should otherwise naturally excite. But lest we feel tempted to sneer at these poor folk for their incurious attitude toward the visible antiquities of their land, let us ask ourselves how many of us take that interest in the antiquities of our own country or our own especial locality that they demand.[12]
Fairy Builders
For the most part, then, the megaliths, in the opinion of the Breton peasant, are not the handiwork of man. He would rather refer their origin to spirits, giants, or fiends. If he makes any exception to this supernatural attribution, it is in favour of the saints he reverences so profoundly. The fairies, he says, harnessed their oxen to the mighty stones, selected a site, and dragged them thither to form a dwelling, or perhaps a cradle for the infant fays they were so fond of exchanging for human children. Thus the Roches aux Fées near Saint-Didier, in Ille-et-Vilaine, were raised by fairy hands, the elves collecting “all the big stones in the country” and carrying them thither in their aprons. These architectural sprites then mounted on each other’s shoulders in order that they might reach high enough to place the mighty monoliths securely in position. This practice they also followed in building the dolmen near the wood of Rocher, on the road from Dinan to Dol, say the people of that country-side.
But the actual purpose of the megaliths has not been neglected by tradition, for a venerable farmer at Rouvray stated that the fairies were wont to honour after their death those who had made good use of their lives and built the dolmens to contain their ashes. The presence of such a shrine in a country-side was a guarantee of abundance and prosperity therein, as a subtle and indefinable charm spread from the saintly remnants and communicated itself to everything in the neighbourhood.[13] The fairy builders, says tradition, went about their work in no haphazard manner. Those 51 among them who possessed a talent for design drew the plans of the proposed structure, the less gifted acting as carriers, labourers, and masons. Apron-carrying was not their only method of porterage, for some bore the stones on their heads, or one under each arm, as when they raised the Roche aux Fées in Retiers, or the dolmen in La Lande Marie.[14] The space of a night was usually sufficient in which to raise a dolmen. But though ‘run up’ with more than Transatlantic dispatch, in view of the time these structures have endured for, any charge of jerry-building against their elfin architects must fall to the ground. Daylight, too, frequently surprised the fairy builders, so that they could not finish their task, as many a ‘roofless’ dolmen shows.
There are many Celtic parallels to this belief. For example, it is said that the Picts, or perhaps the fairies, built the original church of Corstorphine, near Edinburgh, and stood in a row handing the stones on, one to another, from Ravelston Quarry, on the adjacent hill of Corstorphine. Such is the local folk-tale; and it has its congeners in Celtic and even in Hindu myth. Thus in the Highland tale of Kennedy and the claistig, or fairy, whom he captured, and whom he compelled to build him a house in one night, we read that she set her people to work speedily:
And they brought flags and stones
From the shores of Cliamig waterfall,
Reaching them from hand to hand.[15]
Again, the Round Tower of Ardmore, in Ireland, was 52 built with stones brought from Slieve Grian, a mountain some four or five miles distant, “without horse or wheel,” the blocks being passed from hand to hand from the quarry to the site of the building. The same tradition applied to the Round Tower of Abernethy, in Perthshire, only it is in this case demonstrated that the stone of which the tower is composed was actually taken from the traditional quarry, even the very spot being geologically identified.[16] In like manner, too, was Rama’s bridge built by the monkey host in Hindu myth, as recounted in the Mahābhārata and the Rāmāyana.