THE LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF BPITTANY. 70 



There is still existing in Morbihan a greater variety of those curious 

 remains, than in all the British islands put together. This corner 

 of Europe was the favourite resort of the Druids. Then this attaches 

 to Brittany an unusual interest, owing to the numerous evidences 

 which it presents of the manners and industry and peculiarities of 

 the Druids ; and it is also conceded that Brittany was the cradle of 

 chivalry and romance, and that there some of the most essefatial 

 materials of romantic fiction had their home. Owing to the political 

 upheavals which obtained over several centuries in Great Britain, it 

 might be expected that frequent interchanges took place between the 

 Celts of England and their brethren in Brittany, and that com- 

 munications of an intimate character must often have passed betwee(n 

 them. Stephens, than whom there can be no more i-eliable authority, 

 thus writes in his Literature of the Kymry (p. 402): "We must 

 therefore seek the fii'St traces of the Arthur of romance among 

 Kymry of Armorica, and the people of Armorica, and of ancient 

 Gaul generally, are supposed to have been the same people as 

 the colonists of Britain, and this would seem to be the reason 

 why, during times of distress, the Britons fled there for refuge, and 

 the oppressions of the Picts led many more to leave the island ; and 

 after the Anglo-Saxons had entered A. D; 513, fresh bodies flew ta 

 Armorica, and settled in the Counti-y of Yannes and Quimper, then 

 called Lectavia, Littan and Llydew, and the conclusion is^both 

 legitimate and irresistibla that the romantic Arthur is a creation of 

 the Armorican Kymry." "The primitive people of the British isles," 

 writes Le Gonidec, " who did not wish to submit to the yoke of the 

 Saxons, fled into the mountains of the country of the Gauls . 

 Another party of the insular Britons went to find an asylum in 

 Armorica, because they knew well that they would find a friendly 

 people and one that spoke the same language. Saint Mayloire fol- 

 lowed the emigrants to the Armoricans ; how could the Saint have 

 been able to make the Armoricans understand him, if he had not 

 spoken the same language that was in use in Armorica 1 " 



The Celts of Brittany have accordingly many features of interest 

 and of historical importance. The inhabitants of that portion of 

 France exceeded two millions and a half in 1876. Le Gonidec 

 stated in 1838 that no less than two million Bretons spoke the Celtic 

 language of their native province. It must afford immense satisfac- 

 tion to Celts, whose sympathies are either directly or indirectly con- 



