And always the child replied:
"I see only the fox-glove blossoms." For at that epoch, Armorica was a wild country.
"Well, then, we will go farther," replied the old man.
And the little horse went on his way. At last the child cried out:
"Father, I see the clover blooming."
And he stopped. The old man dismounted, and seating himself on a stone, in the sun, he sang the songs of labor in the fields, and of their culture in different seasons. This agricultural bard was invested with a venerated character by the ancient Bretons. They regarded him as a pillar of social existence; but his heart, open to the cultivation of nature, was closed to the love of humanity. With one of his brethren he said willingly: "I do not plough the earth without shedding blood on it." He thirsted for the blood of Christian monks and priests, and he offered it with joy as sacrifice to the earth. To the wisest lessons in agriculture he added the most ferocious predictions, "The followers of Christ shall be tracked; they shall be hunted like wild beasts, they shall die in bands and by battalions on the mountain. The wheel of the mill grinds fine; the blood of the monks will serve as water."
Scarcely sixty years had rolled away, and these same monks whom the bard cursed as usurpers of the Celtic harp and as stealers of the children of the Bretons, advanced peaceably over the ruins of a religion of which he was the last minister, ready to shed blood also, but their own; ready to perform prodigies, but of intelligence and of love. Their chief was not on horseback, he walked with bare feet, (he went always unshod, says his historian,) and having journeyed for a long time, he spoke thus to his disciples:
"Know, my brothers, it wearies me to be always running and wandering in this way; pray to God that he will reveal to us some place in which we can live to serve him for the rest of our days."
They all commenced to pray, and behold a voice was heard saying: "Go even toward the east, and where I shall three times tell thee to rest, there thou wilt dwell." They commenced then on the road to the east, and when they had gone very far, having found a field filled with high green wheat, they sat down in its shade. Now, as he was thus reposing, a voice was heard which said three times: "Make your dwelling here." Filled with gratitude, they knelt to thank God, and being thirsty with the heat and the travel, the saint by his prayers obtained a fresh fountain.
But the possession of the land was not easy to obtain from the avaricious proprietor, whom the French legend charitably calls "an honest man." Hervé demanded of him, however, only a little corner in which to erect a small monastery.