[77] My Breton friend, M. Goulven Le Scour, was born November 20, 1851, at Kerouledic in Plouneventer, Finistère. He is an antiquarian, a poet, and, as we shall see, a folk-lorist of no mean ability. In 1902, at the Congrès d’Auray of Breton poets and singers, he won two prizes for poetry, and, in 1901, a prize at the Congrès de Quimperlé or Concours de Recueils poétiques.
[78] This story concerns persons still living, and, at M. Le Scour’s suggestion, I have omitted their names.
[79] By a Carnac family I was afterwards given a sprig of such blessed box-wood, and was assured that its exorcizing power is still recognized by all old Breton families, most of whom seem to possess branches of it.
[80] This idea seems related to the one in the popular Morbihan legend of how St. Cornely, the patron saint of the country and the saint who presides over the Alignements and domestic horned animals, changed into upright stones the pagan forces opposing him when he arrived near Carnac; and these stones are now the famous Alignements of Carnac.
[81] Luzel, op. cit., iii. 226-311; i. 128-218; ii. 349-54.
[82] Ib., ii. 269; cf. our study, p. [93].
[83] According to the annotations to a legend recorded by Villemarqué, in his Barzaz Breiz, pp. 39-44, and entitled the Submersion de la Ville d’Is, St. Guenolé was traditionally the founder of the first monastery raised in Armorica; and Dahut the princess stole the key from her sleeping father in order fittingly to crown a banquet and midnight debaucheries which were being held in honour of her lover, the Black Prince.
[84] Luzel, op. cit., ii. 257-68; i. 3-13.
[85] P. Sébillot, Traditions et superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne (Paris, 1882), i. 100.
[86] General references: Sébillot, ib.; and his Folk-Lore de France (Paris, 1905).