Corrigans and follets only show themselves at night, or in the twilight. No one knows where they pass the day-time. Some lutins or follets, after the manner of Scotch kelpies, live solitary lives in lakes or ponds (whereas corrigans are socially united in groups or families), and amuse themselves by playing tricks on travellers passing by after dark. Souvestre records a story showing how the lutins can assume any animal form, but that their natural form is that of a little man dressed in green; and that the corrigans have declared war on them for being too friendly to men.[95] From what follows about lutins, by M. Goulven Le Scour, they show affinity with Pucks and such shape-shifting hobgoblins as are found in Wales:—‘The lutins were little dwarfs who generally appeared at cross-roads to attack belated travellers. And it is related in Breton legends that these lutins sometimes transformed themselves into black horses or into goats; and whoever then had the misfortune to encounter them sometimes found his life in danger, and was always seized with great terror.’ But generally, what the Breton peasant tells about corrigans he is apt to tell at another time about lutins. And both tribes of beings, so far as they can be distinguished, are the same as the elfish peoples—pixies in Cornwall, Robin Good-fellows in England, goblins in Wales, or brownies in Scotland. Both corrigans and lutins are supposed to guard hidden treasure; some trouble horses at night; some, like their English cousins, may help in the house-work after all the family are asleep; some cause nightmare; some carry a torch like a Welsh death-candle; some trouble men and women like obsessing spirits; and nearly all of them are mischievous. In an article in the Revue des Traditions Populaires (v. 101), M. Sébillot has classified more than fifty names given to lutins and corrigans in Lower Brittany, according to the form under which these spirits appear, their peculiar traits, dwelling-places, and the country they inhabit.
Like the fairies in Britain and Ireland, the corrigans and the Cornish pixies find their favourite amusement in the circular dance. When the moon is clear and bright they gather for their frolic near menhirs, and dolmens, and tumuli, and at cross-roads, or even in the open country; and they never miss an opportunity of enticing a mortal passing by to join them. If he happens to be a good-natured man and enters their sport heartily, they treat him quite as a companion, and may even do him some good turn; but if he is not agreeable they will make him dance until he falls down exhausted, and should he commit some act thoroughly displeasing to them he will meet their certain revenge. According to a story reported from Lorient (Morbihan)[96] it is taboo for the corrigans to make a complete enumeration of the days of the week:—
The ‘Corrigan’ Taboo.—‘At night, the corrigans dance, singing, “Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday”; they are prohibited from completing the enumeration of the days of the week. A corrigan having had the misfortune to permit himself to be tempted to add “Saturday”, immediately became hunchbacked. His comrades, stupefied and distressed, attempted in vain to knock in his hump with blows of their fists.’
‘Corrigans’ at Carnac.—How the tradition of the dancing corrigans and their weekday song still lives, appears from the following accounts which I found at and near Carnac, the first account having been given during January 1909 by Madame Marie Ezanno, of Carnac, then sixty-six years old:—‘The corrigans are little dwarfs who formerly, by moonlight, used to dance in a circle on the prairies. They sang a song the couplet of which was not understood, but only the refrain, translated in Breton: “Di Lun (Monday), Di Merh (Tuesday), Di Merhier (Wednesday).”
‘They whistled in order to assemble. Where they danced mushrooms grew; and it was necessary to maintain silence so as not to interrupt them in their dance. They were often very brutal towards a man who fell under their power, and if they had a grudge against him they would make him submit to the greatest tortures. The peasants believed strongly in the corrigans, because they thus saw them and heard them. The corrigans dressed in very coarse white linen cloth. They were mischievous spirits (esprits follets), who lived under dolmens.’
One morning, M. Lemort and myself called upon Madame Louise Le Rouzic in her neat home at Kerallan, a little group of thatched cottages about a mile from Carnac. As we entered, Madame Le Rouzic herself was sitting on a long wooden bench by the window knitting, and her daughter was watching the savoury-smelling dinner as it boiled in great iron pots hanging from chains over a brilliant fire on the hearth. Large gleaming brass basins were ranged on a shelf above the broad open chimney-place wherein the fire burned, and massive bedsteads carved after the Breton style stood on the stone floor. When many things had been talked about, our conversation turned to corrigans, and then the good woman of the house told us these tales:—
‘Corrigans’ at Church.—‘In former times a young girl having taken the keys of the church (presumably at Carnac) and having entered it, found the corrigans about to dance; and the corrigans were singing, “Lundi, Mardi” (Monday, Tuesday). On seeing the young girl, they stopped, surrounded her, and invited her to dance with them. She accepted, and, in singing, added to their song “Mercredi” (Wednesday). In amazement, the corrigans cried joyfully, “She has added something to our song; what shall we give her as recompense?” And they gave her a bracelet. A friend of hers meeting her, asked where the fine bracelet came from; and the young girl told what had happened. The second girl hurried to the church, and found the corrigans still dancing the rond. She joined their dance, and, in singing, added “Jeudi” (Thursday) to their song; but that broke the cadence; and the corrigans in fury, instead of recompensing her wished to punish her. “What shall we do to her?” one of them cried. “Let the day be as night to her!” the others replied. And by day, wherever she went, she saw only the night.’
The ‘Corrigans’’ Sabbath.—‘Where my grandfather lived,’ continued Madame Le Rouzic, ‘there was a young girl who went to the sabbath of the corrigans; and when she returned and was asked where she had been, said, “I have travelled over water, wood, and hedges.” And she related all she had seen and heard. Then one night, afterwards, the corrigans came into the house, beat her, and dragged her from bed. Upon hearing the uproar, my grandfather arose and found the girl lying flat on the stone floor. “Never question me again,” she said to him, “or they will kill me.”’[97]
‘Corrigans’ as Fairies.—Some Breton legends give corrigans the chief characteristics of fairies in Celtic Britain and Ireland; and Villemarqué in his Barzaz Breiz (pp. [25-30]) makes the Breton word corrigan synonymous with fée or fairy, thus:—‘Le Seigneur Nann et la Fée (Aotrou Nann hag ar Corrigan).’ In this legend the corrigan seems clearly enough to be a water-fairy: ‘The Korrigan was seated at the edge of her fountain, and she was combing her long fair hair.’ But unlike most water-fairies, the Fée lives in a grotto, which, according to Villemarqué, is one of those ancient monuments called in Breton dolmen, or ti ar corrigan; in French, Table de pierres, or Grotte aux Fées—like the famous one near Rennes. The fountain where the Fée was seated seems to be one of those sacred fountains, which, as Villemarqué says, are often found near a Grotte aux Fées, and called Fontaine de la Fée, or in Breton, Feunteun ar corrigan. In another of Villemarqué’s legends, L’Enfant Supposé, after the egg-shell test has been used and the little corrigan-changeling is replaced by the real child, the latter as though all the while it had been in an unconscious trance-state—which has a curious bearing on our Psychological Theory—stretches forth its arms and awakening exclaims, ‘Ah! mother, what a long time I have been asleep.’[98] And in Les Nains we see the little Duz or dwarfs inhabiting a cave and guarding treasures.[98]
In his introduction to the Barzaz Breiz, Villemarqué describes les korrigan, whom he equates with les fées, as very similar to ordinary fairies. They can foretell the future, they know the art of war—quite like the Irish ‘gentry’ or Tuatha De Danann—they can assume any animal form, and are able to travel from one end of the world to another in the twinkling of an eye. They love feasting and music—like all Celtic fairy-folk; and dance in a circle holding hands, but at the least noise disappear. Their favourite haunts are near fountains and dolmens. They are little beings not more than two feet high, and beautifully proportioned, with bodies as aerial and transparent as those of wasps. And like all fairy, or elvish races, and like the Breton Morgans or water-spirits, they are given to stealing the children of mortals. Professor J. Loth has called my attention to an unpublished Breton legend of his collection, in which there are fairy-like beings comparable to these described by Villemarqué; and he tells me, too, that throughout Brittany one finds to-day the counterpart of the Welsh Tylwyth Teg or ‘Fair Family’, and that both in Wales and Brittany the Tylwyth Teg are popularly described as little women, or maidens, like fairies no larger than children.