1 82 WOLF-HUNTING. 



a delicate woman, possessed the heart of a lion, had animated the 

 garrison to resist to the last man, fighting herself hand to hand, 

 and assailing the enemy in several desperate sallies, till at length, 

 when eating her last loaf, and preparing for capitulation, the 

 English fleet hove in sight ; and Sir Walter de Manny, with a 

 host of knights and archers, hastened to the rescue. Two or 

 three fierce sorties, headed by the countess mounted on a war 

 horse, compelled the besiegers to withdraw, when the English 

 troops, bringing an ample stock of provisions with them from 

 the ships, were received into the town with the utmost joy and 

 gratitude. But you should read f Froisart/ " added Villemarque, 

 " to enjoy the history of Henn-bont and the achievements of this 

 noble dame, the wife of Jean de Montfort." 



With many such tales as this, having reference to the surround- 

 ing locality, did our savants beguile the time between Henn-bont 

 and Auray. At this latter place, a boat is waiting to convey us 

 down the little estuary to Locmariaker ; and, as the wind and tide 

 favour us, we soon arrive at Hellu, a cairn of stones not far from 

 that desolate village. The menhir and dolmen that now meet our 

 eye on every side, some tolerably whole, but most lying in frag- 

 ments around, the grim and silent witnesses of unknown rites and 

 of a by-gone people, are of such a magnitude, that every one con- 

 templating the scene must wonder that not a scrap of history 

 remains to inform us who were the authors, what was the date, or 

 what the object of such vast and remarkable constructions. But 

 so it is ; time has obliterated every trace of their origin ; and, if 

 they be graves of the dead, as many conjecture, not a single 

 epitaph remains to tell who or what they were who lie buried 

 here. What a moral on the perpetuity of man's monu- 

 ments ! 



Some strange figures, it is true, may be seen on the under side 

 of the vast slabs of the Dolmen, called dol-yr-Marchant ; but 

 they are not believed to be coeval with the construction of the 



