There are in more than one place near the western coast stones set up in the same manner as those at Stonehenge. A species of genii, called Gaurics, are supposed to dance among them; and the stones are called, in general, Chior-gaur, or “The giants’ dance.” In one of the places where some of these stones are to be seen, the people of the neighbourhood, if asked what they mean, say that it was a procession to a wedding which was all in a moment changed into stone for some crime, but they do not know what. In another place they are reputed to be the funeral procession of a miser, who received this punishment because in his lifetime he had never given any thing to the poor.
These are only a few out of the innumerable superstitions which prevail throughout Bretagne, but they are sufficient to give a perfect idea of the power which imagination has over the minds of these people.[260]
NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.
Mean Temperature 63·30.
[259] See vol. i. col. 935.
[260] Miss Plumptre.