430 Tan Hill Fair. 



year too, such as fires on hills, flowers in ]\Iay, and harvest fruits 

 in August. 



" Tan Hoel " (Fire of Helios, or the Sun) became changed into 

 " Tan St. Jean " (St. John Baptist),^ on the eve of which day fires 

 are still lighted in Norway, Brittany, and other places, and a 

 tinge of Christianity given to the old customs by giving a saint's 

 name to the day on which they were observed. In this way Tan 

 Hill has been altered into St. Anne's Hill ; and it is greatly to be 

 regretted that modern maps all perpetuate the error. 



Fairs are held in Brittany on the same day as the fair on Tan 

 Hill, August 6th, at St. Anne d'Auray ; at St. Anne de Palue early 

 in August, and at Carnac on St. John Baptist's eve. 



A curious account is given by the Eev. S. Baring Gould of 

 Keranna (the camp or caer of Anna), in Brittany. He identifies 

 Anna with a goddess of the Celts, or of even older Dolmen builders 

 wliom they had subjugated. It is now the site of the pilgrim's 

 church of St. Anne d'Auray. He tells us, as the guide books also 

 do, that 



" in 1623 a peasant, Yves Nicolazie, dug up a statue on the spot — probably 

 one of the Dese Matres of which so umny have been found in the Roman 

 villa at Carnac ; — he supposed it to be St. Anne. The Carmelites heard of 

 it and organised a cult of the image in 1627, and St. Anne is now regarded 

 as the special patroness of Brittany, as Anna seems to have been of old, 

 showing how old beliefs hang on, and reassert themselves in changed forms." - 



In a similar way Dionysus became St. Denis, Dinas also became 

 St. Denis, and Llanandinas became St. Anthony in Cornwall : Mars 

 temple was changed to St. Martin, and a temple on the hill of 

 Soracte to St. Oreste, illustrating a common practice where the 

 Church was anxious to establish Christianity in place of the pre- 

 vailing heathendom. 



The feast of St. Anne was not fixed for the whole of the Latin 

 Church till 1584, when Gregory XIII. appointed it for general 



' Prof. J. Rhys says : — " St. John's Eve belongs to the Solsticial year, and 

 is Germanic or Norse ; while the Celtic year of the British Isles is not 

 solsticial ! and is a November — May year." 



- Baring Gould. Brittany. 



