154 CORNISH DEDICATIONS. 



parish of Pontivy, but vexed by the pursuit of Nezin she with- 

 drew to Bignan, seven leagues distant, and to a place called Le 

 Bezou in that parish. Nezin hearing of her flight pursued her, 

 renewed his solicitations, was again repulsed, and decapitated her 

 there. 



6. S. Noualhuen rose up, took her head in her hands, and 

 returned to Pontivy along with her nurse. 



7. Arrived there, she and her nurse knelt on a rock, still 

 pointed out as bearing the impress of her elbows and knees. She 

 planted her staff, and it became a tree. 



8. Whilst on her way back, she heard a girl address her 

 mother rudely ; this so shocked her that she resolved on depart- 

 ing to a more solitary spot. 



9. She accordingly pursued her course till she came to the 

 edge of a vast forest, near a stream, and there she died. 



10. Above her tomb a chapel was erected. Nizan or Nezin, 

 full of wrath, resolved on its destruction, by damming up the 

 stream. But the dyke burst, swept him away, and he was 

 drowned. 



It will be seen that by misplacing a picture, the story of her 

 wanderings with her head in her hands may easily have origi- 

 nated. She fled from her jjursuer, and the flight has been 

 transferred to the period after her decapitation. 



Unhappily no ancient " Life " of the Saint exists, and all 

 we know of her is from legend. But legend is always based on 

 a substratum of fact. The facts were probably these: — That 

 Noalwen was one in a migration from Cornwall to Armorica, 

 that the natives of Brittany did not relish this invasion, and under 

 their chief Nezin opposed it ; that bcveral were slain, and among 

 them Noalwen whom he attemj)ted to gain possession of for 

 himself. 



Nizan or Nezin, the plou of the persecutor of the Saint, still 

 bears his name attached to a parish that adjoins Noyal- Pontivy, 

 and a strong feeling exists to the present day against a girl of 

 Noyal-Pontivy seeking a husband in Nezin. A cantique in 

 Breton is sung on the fete at Noj^al-Pontivy to a popular Breton 

 melody. It contains the legend run into verse. 



