"The Welsh sailors in Cardigan Bay, which, they assure us, now occupies the submerged territory, declare that they can see beneath the waters the ruins of ancient edifices. The same is said of the Bay of Douarnenez in Basse-Bretagne.
"Also, the Irish fishermen, at a much earlier epoch, (according to Giraldus Cambrensis,) the middle of the second century, believed that they could see glimmering under the waters of the lake which covers their city of Neaz the round towers of ancient days.
"With regard to the horse of Gradlon, Marie de France assures us that, in struggling through the flood, the force of the water bore his master off his back; that the life of Gradlon was saved by a beneficent fay, but the horse, on reaching the land without the king, became wild with grief.
"The original tradition says that Gradlon, fleeing for his life, bore his daughter behind him, when a terrible voice cried three times, 'Push off the demon that sits behind thee.' The unhappy king obeyed, and forthwith the waters were restrained."
Submersion Of The City Of Is.
I.
Oh! hast thou heard—oh! hast thou heard
Of Gwenolé the rede,
Which unto Gradlon, king of Is,
He spake, but gat small heed?
"To earthly love, ah! yield thee not,
With evil cease to toy;
For after pleasure cometh woe,
And sorrow follows joy.
"Who bites the flesh of fishes, soon
The fishes him shall bite;
And he who swallows, shall himself
Be swallowed up some night.
"And he who drinks both beer and wine,
Shall water drink amain:
To him who cannot scan my speech
It soon shall be made plain."
II.
One eve spake Gradlon, king of Is,
King Gradlon thus spake he
"My merry friends, by your fair leave,
A little sleep would we."
"To-morrow 'twill be time enough—
With us this evening stay;
But if it be thy mind to sleep,
We would not say thee nay."
And thereupon her lover spake,
Full softly whispered he,
To Gradlon's daughter, "Sweet princess,
Sweet Dahut—and the key!"
"Hush! I will bear the key away
That locks the floodgates fast,
And Is shall be within thy power
Ere little time be past."
III.
Now, whosoe'er had seen the king,
As on his couch he lay,
With admiration had been filled
At sight of his array.
The aged king, in purple robed,
With long and snow-white hair,
Which o'er his shoulders flowed upon
His golden collar fair.
And whosoe'er had lain in wait
Had spied the princess white,
Unsandalled, steal into that room,
In silence of the night.
She to the king her father crept,
Sank softly on her knee,
Loosed from his neck the golden chain,
And bore away the key.
IV.
He sleepeth on—he sleepeth on,
Till, from the plains, a cry—
"The deep is o'er us! Is overwhelmed
Beneath the waters high!
"My lord the king, arise, arise!
To horse! and swiftly flee.
The dykes are burst—the land o'erflowed
By the triumphant sea."
Accursed be the treacherous maid
Who opened thus the gate
After the feast—who drowned the land,
And made it desolate!
V.
"Oh! tell me now, brave forester,
The wild-horse hast thou seen
Of Gradlon? Hast thou seen it pass
Along this valley green?"
"The horse of Gradlon saw I not
At any time pass by;
But in deep night 'trip trap' I hear,
With lightning swiftness fly."
"Say, hast thou seen, O fisherman!
The daughter of the sea,
Combing her golden hair at noon,
Where sparkling breakers be?"
"Yes, I have seen the mermaid white:
She sings among the waves.
Her songs are plaintive as the sound
Of deeps o'er dead men's graves."
We come now to The Changeling; and here again we trace not so much a resemblance as an all but literal reproduction of an Irish legend, known to all readers of The Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland under the title, The Brewery of Egg-shells. It must be confessed, however, that the non-Catholic medium through which the Irish version reaches us, has deprived it of the religious turn it may possibly have had in the original. Our Lady does not appear in it, as here in the Breton ballad.
The Changeling.
Grieved to the heart is la belle Marie.
Where may her Laoik, her little one, be?
Carried away by the Korrigan he.
"Forth to the fount as I went on a day,
Safe in his cradle my little one lay;
Home when I came he had vanished away.
"This wretched monster I found in his place.
Rough, like a toad, with a horrible face,
Dumb, greedy, fierce, like the rest of his race.
"Mary most pure, on your snow-gleaming throne,
In your maternal arms holding your Son,
You are in joy, while in sorrow I moan.
"Your Holy Child evermore you are keeping,
Mine I have lost, whom I thought safely sleeping;
Mother of Pity, ah! pity my weeping!"
"Daughter, my daughter, oh! sorrow no more.
Lost is he not whom you thus would deplore,
Laoik, your darling, short time shall restore.
"Who in an egg-shell shall feign to prepare
All that ten laborers need for their fare,
Forces the dwarf into speech, then and there.
"When he has spoken, then whip—whip again!
Whip, till he cry out with anger and pain!
He will be heard: and be borne off amain."
"Prithee, my mother, what do you?" he cries,
"What make you, mother?" he asks in surprise.
Dwarfling can scarcely believe his own eyes.
"What am I doing, my son, would you ken?
Dinner I make, in this egg-shell, for ten,
Ten of the farm-servants, laboring men."
"Ten! in an eggshell! The egg I have seen
Fresh, of the oldest white hen that has been:
Acorn, whose oak is far-spreading and green.
"Oaks have I seen, widening out from their core,
Old oaks of Brézal wood, rugged and hoar;
Nothing like this have I e'er seen before."
"Too many things hast thou seen," she replies:
Flip, flap! flip, flap!—thus upon him she flies.
"Little old man, now I have thee!" she cries.
"Whip not, nor strike, but restore him to me;
Harm hath been none to thy boy, belle Marie;
King over all in our country is he!"
When to her home returned Marie that day,
Safe in his cradle her own baby lay,
Sweetly asleep, as if wearied with play.
While she stands gazing, entranced at the sight,
Bending to kiss the fair cheeks with delight,
Laoik, her lost one, his eyes opens bright.
Half rising up, and with wondering eyes,
Soft arms outstretched in a dreamy surprise,
"Mother! how long I've been sleeping!" he cries.
We will conclude our present instalment from these interesting relics of Celtic antiquity by a spirit-stirring fragment; for the reader will perceive that it is incomplete. This is Arthur's March, (Bale Arzur,) written, like the last, in the Ies Kerne, or dialect of Cornouaille—Cornu Galliae—a district of Brittany. There is a complete change of metre between the parts marked I. and II.; the former being so arranged, that the poetical foot composing the lines is of three short syllables following a long one, and produces a spirited and martial effect, somewhat like the beat of a modern drum.
M. de Villemarqué, from whose Barzaz Briez, or Breton Ballads, we have drawn so largely in these pages, speaks thus of the ballad before us:
"The popularity which the name of Arthur enjoys in Brittany is one of the most curious phenomena in the history of Breton fidelity. Neither defeat nor exile could make the Bretons forgetful of Arthur. His magic renown, crossing the sea with them, received new life in Armorica; he became there, as he was in the Isle of Britain, an armed symbol of national liberty; and the people, at all periods from the sixth century to our own time, repeated, with adaptation to circumstances, the traditions and the sayings or prophecies of which he was the subject. Thus, whenever war is impending, they see, as a warning sign, the army of Arthur defiling at break of day over the summit of the Black Mountains; and the poem here given has for twelve centuries been in the mouth of Bretons armed to defend their hearths and altars. I learnt it from an aged mountaineer named Mikel Floc'h, of Leuhan, who told me that he had often sung it when marching against the enemy in the last wars of the west."