It was during the decadence of the Breton tongue—known to philologists as the third period—that the monk Abelard cried out: “The Breton tongue makes me blush with shame.”
The nearer one comes to Finistère, the less liable he is to meet the French tongue unadulterated. The numbers knowing the Breton tongue alone more than equal those who know French and Breton, leaving those who know French alone vastly in the minority. The figures seem astonishing to one who does not know the country, but they are unassailable, nevertheless.
St. Pol de Léon
Here in this department at least, and to a lesser degree in the Côtes du Nord and the Morbihan provinces, one is likely enough to hear lisped out, as if it were the effort of an Englishman: “Je na sais pas ce que vous dîtes,” or “Je n’entend rien.” No great hardship or inconvenience is inflicted upon one by all this, but now and again one wishes he were a Welshman, for the only foreigners who can understand the lingo are Taffy’s fellow country-men.
Breton legend is as weird and varied as that of any land. It is astonishingly convincing, too, from the story of King Grollo and his wicked daughter, who came from the Britain across the seas, the Bluebeard legend, the Arthurian legend, which Bretons claim as their own, as do Britons, to those less incredible tales of the Corsairs of St. Malo and the exploits of Duguesclin and Surcouf.