BRETON TROUT STREAMS 57 



ancient Breton prayer : " Saints ivrognes 

 de Bretagne, priez pour nous " ? Liquor 

 stupefies him, but cannot make him brutal 

 or vindictive. He may lie helpless in a 

 ditch, and yet he always sees the stars. 



Perhaps we love him most because he 

 has escaped orthodoxy. He clings to the 

 fringe of immortality. His land is still 

 fey. Along his moors are menhirs, each 

 crowned with a cross of stone. He 

 worships both the menhir and the cross. 



We have irrelevantly wandered so far 

 beyond the Breton streams that one 

 turn further brings us to the land of 

 legend. 



It happened in the days of the Deluge, 

 that St. Peter and St. Paul were travelling 

 the world to see what was a- doing, and 

 they reached the land of Brittany in the 

 height of the rain and the wind. The two 

 poor saints were drenched to the skin, 

 besides being cold and hungry, and though 

 they knocked loudly at many doors, they 

 could not make themselves heard, so great 

 was the roaring of the tempest. 



At length they reached the hovel of one 

 called Misery, and this they entered, for 



