Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 29, 1918.djvu/91

 Rh as the Tomb of St. Augustine in the parish of Plougonven, or on another tomb in the cathedral of St. Paul de Leon. Women carry to a holy well near Quimper the shirts of children suffering from whooping cough. But perhaps the most famous holy wells are those of St. Anne la Palue and St. Anne d'Auray, St. Anne being the patron saint of Brittany.

Cattle-healing.

Near Carnac is preserved the head of St. Cornely in a church. When cattle are sick the priest throws holy water over them at the church door, and the owner buys an image of St. Cornely and hangs it in the cattle-shed.

Apparitions.

M. Collobert of Lanncanon told me a tale of a farmer in that village who was coming home late from Morlaize. His father's spirit appeared to him on the road and begged him to make a pilgrimage to St. Anne d'Auray and get the priest to say masses for him as he was undergoing tortures in purgatory. When he reached home he found to his great surprise that about the same time the spirit had appeared also in the house.

He also told me about the spirit of Escop Penarstanc. He was once Bishop of Treguier, and was far from being a godly man. So his spirit was condemned to come back every night from the other world, and to say, or at least to try to say, mass, in the church of Plougonven, until he could find a Christian to do it for him. This spirit troubled the neighbourhood for generations. Every night the people were amazed to see the church lighted up. At last a priest conjured the spirit to jump over a precipice into a deep pool, after which it was never seen again.

Death Portents.

A young man named Theophile Guyomarch of Scrignac told me of an old woman who possessed second sight, and can always tell when a death is about to occur. One night my informant was passing a house and heard voices praying as they do in