Rambles in Brittany

by M. F. Mansfield

Five kilometres away is the Chapel of St. Eloi of the sixteenth century. This sainted personage is represented throughout Finistère with the attributes of a bishop and of a horseshoer. Horses are placed under his protection, and the Pardon of St. Eloi is celebrated in various parts with much merrymaking, and always with much firing of guns. A motor-car is not beloved here, and if one incidentally or accidentally come upon a festival of St. Eloi, he had best forthwith make tracks in retreat. The actual religious ceremony consists of a mounted cavalier riding up to the chapel door and making a sort of salute or obeisance three times from the saddle without putting foot to the ground, after which he deposits on the altar a packet of horse-hair, or even the tail of a horse.

In the Forest of Landerneau, six kilometres southwest, is the Château of “La Joyeuse Garde,” celebrated in the romance of the chivalry of King Arthur’s time, wherein King Arthur, Lancelot of the Lake, and Tristan of Lyonnesse played so great a part.

Landivisiau, on the main railway line from Paris to Brest, has a remarkable church under the protection of St. Turiaff,—which in Breton is Tivisian,—who was Archbishop of Dol in the eighth century.

This fine church is a sixteenth-century work, and exhibits all the notes of the early period of the Renaissance, but, in spite of this, the richness of its portal, its bell-tower, its fine spire, and its nave and choir rebuilt in the best of late Gothic, make it a building to be remarked among the churches of Brittany, which, as a rule, have not the ornateness and luxuriance of ornament of those of Normandy and other parts of France.

The cemetery of Landivisiau has a remarkable ossuary, supported by most fantastic shapes, among them a skeleton armed with two arrows, a woman in an unmistakably Spanish costume, and a most diabolical Satan.

The fair-day at Landivisiau is the great celebration of these parts. It is not so ambitious as many of those held elsewhere, but it will give the visitor the opportunity of making an intimate acquaintance with the Bas Bretons in a manner not possible in the larger towns.

The dress of the people is peculiar, with the great baggy trousers of the men, the coifs of the women, and the general display and love of the finery of bright colours which seem inherent with a people living upon the seacoast.

In general, their features are heavy and their expression more or less sullen, although this does not often indicate bad temper. Unquestionably their carriage indicates hard labour, and the furrows and ridges of their countenances come only from continuous contact with the open air. Still, their bodies are stout and broad, and men and women alike have none of the softness and languor of the southern provinces, albeit the Armorican climate is mild throughout the year.