Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

Three kilometres away is the town of St. Guénolé, a tiny fishing port with fine panoramic view of the Bay of Audierne. The chapel of St. Guénolé occupies the base of a great tower, now ruinous, but looking as though in a former day it must have belonged to some pretentious church.

“The Handle of the Torch” is one of the local sights. It is formed of a series of great rocks at some little distance from the mainland. That bearing the name of “The Torch” is separated from the mainland by the Monk’s Leap, which, according to legend, was the landing-place of St. Viaud, when he migrated from Hibernia to Brittany ages ago.

From Quimper to the Point of Raz is one long up and down hill pull of fifty kilometres, until one finally reaches Point or Cape Sizun, known to Ptolemy as the promontory of Gabœum. It is the extreme westerly point of the peninsula of Cornouaille, and, reckoning from the meridian of Paris,—for the French do not use the meridian of Greenwich,—is just on the line of the seventh degree of west longitude. The Léon country northward of Brest actually extends a trifle farther westward, at Point St. Mathieu, but most maps do not show it.

North of the Point of Raz is the great Bay of Douarnenez, with its sardine fisheries rivalling those of Concarneau, and southward lies the shallow bay of the Audierne, whose shores, in their own way, are quite as characteristically wild as those of any part of Northwestern France.

At the extreme end of the Point of Raz are two unpretentious hotels, which will please only those of simple tastes and lovers of the solitary; both are connected with more ambitious establishments at Audierne.

The Bay of the Dead, the Hell of Plogaff, and the rocky point itself, form the tourist attractions, but it will be enough for most lovers of solitude to bask in the sunlight amid the gentle breezes from the Gulf Stream, and to leave rock-climbing to those agile spirits who affect that sort of exercise.

Near Audierne is the Church of St. Tuglan, a fine fifteenth and sixteenth century edifice, with many a legend clinging to the name of its patron saint. It is all very vague, but there is hidden superstition in abundance, if one only had the patience to work it out. All that can be learned is, that the holy man was the Abbé of Primelin, near by, and that his feast is celebrated throughout all the Point of Raz. His statue represents him with a key in the hand, and there is a great iron key preserved in the church said to have once belonged to him. On the day of the pardon great quantities of little loaves are stamped with this key and, according to a popular belief, they will cure a mad dog of his madness, if he be given a morsel to eat, and possess many other virtues of a similar nature. In the sacristy of the church are preserved the teeth of St. Tuglan. The inhabitants of Primelin are known as paotret ar alc’houez, or servants of the key.

Audierne is a busy little Breton port of perhaps four thousand inhabitants, and opposite is the fishing village of Poulgoazec, with sardine factories and all the equipment of the trade. Up to the sixteenth century, Audierne was even more flourishing than it is to-day, for the codfish, which were its riches, had not left for other shores.

The vast Bay of Audierne has a wild and deeply embayed coast-line, with nothing but a population of sea-birds to add to the gaiety of the landscape.

Northward, toward Douarnenez, is Pont Croix, built in the form of an amphitheatre on the bank of the river Goayen.