CHAP, x.] A LEGEND. 455 



can gain a knowledge of the manners and customs of those 

 persons who are daily engaged in prosecuting the fisheries. 

 The clergymen of their districts, as may be supposed, have 

 great power over them, and all along the French coast the 

 fisher-people have churches of their own, and they are con- 

 stantly praying for " luck," or leaving propitiatory gifts upon 

 the altars, as well as going pilgrimages in order that their 

 wishes may be realised. A dream is thought of such great 

 consequence among these people, that the women will hold a 

 conference, early in the day, in order to its interpretation. 

 Each little village has its storied traditions, many of them of 

 great interest, and some of them very romantic. I can only 

 briefly allude, however, to one of these little stories. Some of 

 my readers may have heard of the Bay of the Departed on 

 the coast of Brittany, where, in the dead hour of night, the 

 boatmen are summoned by some unseen power to launch their 

 boats and ferry over to a sacred island the souls of men who 

 had been drowned in the surging waters. The fishermen tell 

 that, on the occasion of those midnight freights, the boat is so 

 crowded with invisible passengers as to sink quite low in the 

 water, and the wails and cries of the shipwrecked are heard as 

 the melancholy voyage progresses. On their arrival at the 

 Island of Sein, invisible beings are said to number the invi- 

 sible passengers, and the wondering awe-struck crew then 

 return to await the next supernatural summons to boat over 

 the ghosts to the storied isle, which was in long back days the 

 chief haunt of the Druidesses in Brittany. A similar story 

 may be heard at Guildo on the same coast. Small skiffs, 

 phantom ones it is currently believed, may be seen when the 

 moon is bright darting out from under the castle cliffs, manned 

 by phantom figures, ferrying over the treacherous sands the 

 spirits whose bodies lie engulphed in the neighbourhood. Not 

 one of the native population, so strong is the dread of the 

 scene, will pass the spot after nightfall, and strange stories 



