Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/299



mass, a human form partly merged again into rough stone—halted before the poor good man who had sought to comfort it: and so protected him until the evil host, dividing, had passed on and he was saved. Then the grateful one, carefully skirting him as he lay on the ground in fainting terror, went on also to its place.

This story comes from the heart of the Breton heart: in which is bedded a natural faith in the supernatural that manifests itself unceasingly in folk customs and in folk tales. Malignant spirits are so close to every Breton's elbow—waiting for the chance to work evil, and frequently finding it—that they have to be reckoned with at every turn. Sunshine—such as I had for a whole week direct from the good Saint Martin—is rare in Brittany; and the gray skies and the gray sea-mists which overhang the Breton peninsula have given a sombre cast to Breton souls. Out of the need for prayer to avert impending supernatural dangers have come the stone crucifixes which are planted so thickly by the roadsides and in the villages throughout the land. To these prayer-places especially do the aged come—heavy with sorrow and with the weight of years. In the twilight, at the quiet sea-end of a village street, you may see an old couple standing—not venturing to bend their stiff old knees—in silent prayer before a cross that lines sharp against the seaward sky. Sometimes, as you round a turn in the road, you will come upon a man or a woman kneeling at the foot of a cross by the roadside. It is the temperament of the land.

In Breton thought the region that is on the other side of Death is not at all a vague and distant region: it is very real, and very near by. And this is because the Bretons do not regard death as severance from life, but merely as going a little aside from life: as when one leaves an overnoisy company and for