PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 127 



Singing and dancing are, or have within quite recent 

 times been, periodically performed and prayers offered 

 by the peasants around both prehistoric stone monu- 

 ments and natural rocks. These facts are only 

 explicable on the supposition that they were the object 

 of a very ancient cult, too deeply rooted in the 

 popular affections to be wholly supplanted by the 

 Church. Newly wedded pairs went afoot to the 

 menhir of Plouarzel, the largest in the department, 

 which has on two opposite sides a round knob about 

 a metre's height above the ground. Partly undressed, 

 the woman on one side and the man on the other 

 rubbed their abdomens against the knob. By this 

 the husband hoped to get sons rather than daughters, 

 and the wife not merely to get fecundity but the 

 whip-hand of her husband. Near Rennes the newly 

 married go, the first Sunday of Lent, to jump on a 

 stone called the Bride-stone (Pierre des EpOMstes), 

 singing the while a special song. In Eure-et- 

 Loire young women desiring children rubbed their 

 abdomens against a rough place on the Pierre de 

 Chantecoq. Less than thirty years ago a menhir not 

 far from Carnac was the scene of a ceremony performed 

 by married pairs who after a union of several years 

 were still without children. While their relatives kept 

 watch at a distance lest they should be disturbed by 

 intruders they stripped and the wife ran round the 

 stone, striving to escape her husband's pursuit, but 

 ending of course by letting him catch her. 1 Young 

 couples who desire children go on pilgrimage to Sainte 

 Baume in Provence. On entering the adjacent forest 



1 Sebillot, Amer. Anthrop. N.S. iv. 83 ; Id. F. L. France, iv. 56, 

 6 1 ; Berenger-Feraud, Traditions^ 200. 



