The impression which the sainted child produced on the men of his time is better founded; it has left traces in the popular imagination which have been translated into touching narratives:
"The evening of All Souls, long before the night, the child returned to his mother, after his circuit.
"And he was very tired, so tired that he could not hold himself on his feet--all the route was slippery with ice.
"So tired that he fell on his mouth, and his mouth vomited blood, blood with broken teeth."
Now these broken teeth did not give birth to furious warriors, like those of the dragon in the fable; they were changed into diamonds which shone from far in the darkness.
Such is the language of the tradition. Can we better paint the songs drawn forth by the sorrow of the son of Hyvarnion, these songs of a Christian muse which cleared away the shadows no less crowded than those of the night of All Souls?
But these shadows were not dissipated instantly; the resistance made to Christianity by the remains of Armorican paganism is not less clearly indicated in traditional recollections than by the action and influence of the little Christian singer.
As he passed the cross-roads of a village where the inhabitants have to this day preserved the sobriquet of paganiz, that is to say, heathens, he fell in the midst of a circle of young peasants, who, interrupting their dance, ran after him, hooting at him, throwing dirt upon him, and crying: "Where are you going, blind one, blind one! Where are you going, blind brawler?"
"I'm going out of this canton, because I must," replied Hervé, "but cursed be the race that comes from you." And, indeed, the little mockers, struck by the anathema, returned to the dance, and they must dance, it is said, to the end of the world, without ever resting or ever growing, becoming like those dwarfed imps whom the Armoricans adored, and whose power the Breton peasants still fear.
Nature herself, that great Celtic divinity, took the side of the imps against Hervé, while the mother of the saint, in beholding him preaching the gospel, could say with the church: "How beautiful are the feet of those who come from the mountains!" "The granite earth on which he walked, refused to carry him, tearing his naked feet, and no one," says the complaint, "no one wiped the blood from his wounds, only his white dog with his tongue, who washed the feet of the saint, and warmed them with his breath."