Most of them are persons who have
really existed, but who have been wrapped by tradition in a very
brilliant network of fable. These fables, which are of the most
primitive simplicity, and form a complete treasure of Celtic mythology
and popular fancies, have never been reduced to writing in their
entirety. The instructive compilations made by the Benedictines and
the Jesuits, even the candid and curious work of Albert Legrand, a
Dominican of Morlaix, reproduce but a very small fraction of them.
So far from encouraging these antique forms of popular worship, the
clergy only just tolerate them, and would suppress them altogether if
they could, feeling that they are the survivals of another and a
much less orthodox age. They consent to say mass once a year in these
chapels, as the saints to whom they are dedicated have too great a
hold in the country to be dislodged, but they say nothing about them
in the parish church. The clergy let the people visit these little
sanctuaries of the antique rite, to seek in them the cure for certain
complaints, and to worship there after their own way; they pretend to
be blind to all this. Where, then, it may be asked, lies concealed the
treasure of all these old stories? Why, in the memory of the people?
Go from chapel to chapel, get the good people who attend them into
conversation, and if they think they can trust you they will tell you
with a mixture of seriousness and pleasantry wonderful stories, from
which comparative mythology and history will one day reap a rich
harvest.
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