If a person who keeps bees has his hives robbed, he gives them up immediately, because they never can succeed afterwards. This idea arises from an old Bréton proverb, which says, Nesquét a chunche, varlearch ar laër “No luck after the robber.” But why the whole weight of the proverb is made to fall upon the bee-hives, it might be difficult to determine.
In other parts of the country they tie a small piece of black stuff to the bee-hives, in case of a death in the family, and a piece of red in the case of a marriage; without which the bees would never thrive. On the death of any one, they draw from the smoke of the fire an augury whether his soul be gone to the regions of the blessed or the condemned: if the smoke be light and mount rapidly, he is gone to heaven; if it be thick and mount slowly, he is doomed to the regions below. If the left eye of a dead person do not close, his nearest relation is to die very soon.
The Brétons have the legend of St. Guénolé, whose sister had an eye plucked out by a goose; the saint took the eye out of the goose’s entrails, and restored it to its place without its appearing in any way different from what it was before.
They tell you likewise of St. Vincent Ferrier, who, while he was celebrating mass at Vannes, perceived that he had lost his gloves and parapluie; and recollecting that he had left them at Rome went thither to seek them, and returned and finished his mass, without one of his congregation having perceived his absence.
They have also a narrative of a wolf who ate up a poor man’s ass. St. Malo ordered the wolf to perform the functions of the ass, which he continued to do ever after; and though sometimes shut up in the stable with the sheep, never offered to touch them, but contentedly fed on thistles, and such other provender as his predecessor used to have.
A peasant boy in the district of Lesneven was never able to pronounce any other words than O itroun guerhes Mari, “O lady Virgin Mary.” This he was perpetually repeating, and he passed among the country people for an idiot. As he grew up he would live no longer with his parents in their cottage, but slept in the hollow of a tree, and ran about the woods making his usual cry; in the coldest weather he plunged into the water up to his neck, still uttering his usual words, and came up without receiving any injury. After he died, a lily sprang from the spot where he was interred. “A miracle!” was the immediate cry, and a church was built over the grave, dedicated to Notre Dame de Follgoat, “Our lady of the madman of the woods,” where notable miracles were afterwards performed.
Certain ruins near the coast, a little to the south of Brest, are reputed to be those of a palace which belonged to the Courils, a sort of pigmies, who deal in sorceries, are very malicious, and are great dancers. They are often seen by moonlight skipping about consecrated stones or any ancient druidical monument; they seize people by the hand, who cannot help following them in all their movements; and when the spirits have made them dance as long as they please, they trip up their heels, leave them sprawling on the ground, and go laughing away.