Rude Stone Antiquities of Brittany. By Miss Russell. 523 



seems now certain — a provision of flint for making implements 

 having been at one time the most useful thing that could be 

 thought of. In fact the flints and shards mentioned by Shakes- 

 peare in connection with the burial of poor Ophelia, are supposed 

 to mean, whether or not he understood the custom he referred to, 

 that the suicide should properly have been interred with old 

 pagan rites. 



The only circle of standing- stones we saw in Brittany was 

 square ; at least it is called so, and it is more square than round. 

 It may be the remains of a fort, though it stands rather low, 

 below the low hill of Crucuno, on an old line of road. 



I should imagine the people who constructed the stone anti- 

 quities of Brittany were the present race ; the name of the 

 Veneti about Carnac might mean people of the pasture-ground, 

 Gwent or white land, and looks Welsh. They were apparently 

 strong, as the present people are. These believe themselves to 

 be the population of England driven out by the Saxons, but I 

 believe this theory in its entirety is impossible ; and I do not 

 know who they suppose Coesar's antagonists to have been. I 

 should think the notion originated partly in their utter unlike- 

 ness to French people, which is much more complete than I had 

 supposed. The language, which is spoken by the people even 

 in the large towns in Lower Brittany, is a sort of Welsh, in fact 

 the names of things are very commonly the same in both 

 languages, though they have been too long separated to be the 

 same language for conversational purposes ; the old Cornish is 

 said, from the literary remains it has left, to have been nearer to 

 Breton than Welsh is. The difference is of the same kind as 

 that between English and German, and even there, where the 

 languages have been developed and cultivated in such different 

 ways, they are often mutually intelligible to the extent of a few 

 words. And the Bretons are probably closely related to the 

 main stock of the Celtic race of England : in Csesar's wars thej r 

 received help from Britain. In fact when one knows — what is 

 not generally known in England — that they assert at all events 

 that Brittany never altogether lost its liberties, never was under 

 the "good pleasure" of the king, as the rest of France really 

 was, between the time of Richelieu and the Revolution, it suggests 

 a new idea as to the elements out of which the British Constitu- 

 tion has been evolved. 



Existing appearances quite coincide with the old names of the 



