New Year

Happy New Year to all - a bit belated as I've had a busy start to 2012 with guided tours and two book deadlines looming. Footprint are issuing a short version of the Brittany guide I did for them in 2009 in their Focus series this spring, so a lot of updating and re-presenting of text to get through before the end of the month. And although an end of March deadline for the Legends book seemed a long way off over Xmas leisure time, it's all getting a bit close now, and little progress has been made recently on that front. I've spent a lot of time designing new French business brochures and an English one for potential tour work this summer.

Otherwise, no resolutions, just new interests and habits. This month I've started Pilates, read a book on astronomy and begun studying abstract art. How stimulating to think about something completely different from my daily fairly predictable working world!

Still keen to work on a project for an extension of the Cornish Saints Way walking trail in Brittany. It would work very well with ferries into Roscoff providing the starting point, and a coastal walk around to Brest or down to Morlaix - two places connected by TGV, makes good practical sense. The footpath is already there in the famous GR34 coastal route and there are lots of links with the arrival places and chapels of British saints - including the cathedral at St-Pol-de-Léon (pictured above) along the way. In fact, it's such a brilliant idea, I know I'll get nowhere with officialdom here.

Death and the Devil

Still struggling with physical movement, but working 'normally' on new book The Legends of Brittany. This is organised thematically with chapters on saints, Dark Age semi-historical tales, Arthurian stories, women in legend, landscape, giants and dwarves, megaliths, etc.

Currently researching death and the devil, which, in Brittany, means an amusing combination. Both Ankou (Grim Reaper) and the Devil (Red Man) are almost appealing figures until the Church sticks its oar in, puts the fear of God into life and demonises the poor old devil. The fact he's clearly working hard to punish sinners surely makes him one of the good guys?

I particularly like this photo of the Devil from the calvaire at Plougonven. It's traditional to represent the scene of the Devil tempting Jesus in statuary on this type of monument, but conventionally he wears the concealing robes of a monk - cloven hooves, claws or horns just poking out to give the game away. Here the Devil seems to be dressed as a 17th century rector, thus contemporary with the time of erection. Was there by any chance a falling out between the priest and the sculptor? Hope so.

Thanks for good wishes

OK, I'm back. Bloodied and bowed, but back. Many thanks for all the emails, and comments here (Ancestral Celt and Michael Dodds). I was confined to the house all summer, and after three months still have walking/driving problems. I have also been unable to work, so under severe financial constraints. Had to cancel my first holiday in seven years - a few days on Belle-Ile - and lost the money I'd paid: don't know which of those two facts was harder to bear!

Sadly had to scrap the Brittany islands book I had signed up to do, but have begun work on The Legends of Brittany, which will be published next year some time. I am also going to add themed walks to the Brittany Expert site - individual routes with all the background, maps, etc. for sale very cheaply in PDF form.

What I really want to do is set up a continuation of the Cornish Saints' Way in Brittany. It's a great project, and themed distance walks are more and more popular, but will anyone in Brittany tourism be the least bit interested? I very much doubt it. Last time I contacted the Finistere Departmental Tourism board about a project they refused me a meeting. The Quimper CCI haven't even bothered to reply to a request to discuss my training course for tourist professionals who want to promote Brittany to anglophones.

Let's face it, I have nothing to offer, because they are doing it all so well already. NOT.

Apologies

WM has been unable to work this summer due to serious illness, hence silence on this blog. She sends thanks to all who have enquired and emailed good wishes, and will resume writing asap. The scheduled book on Brittany's Islands for 2012 has had to be cancelled.

Breton Chant

I went to a concert of chant at one of my favourite places in Brittany, the Abbaye du Relec, on Saturday evening. It's an approriate setting for the genre, being a Cistercian foundation dating back to 1132. The church is austere and authentic, from the extensive damp patches of green mould to uncomfortable seating and lack of heating.
As is common in Brittany, there is no programme. One of the performers gives a short introduction here and there, but unless you are sitting near the front it's impossible to hear, as there are no microphones, so there is no immediate trigger as to context or subject matter. I also can't see anything in the first half, because the man singing the Breton chants is short and his guitarist is seated.
These things enhance the experience. All I am aware of is the music, the lone male voice echoing round the high nave, mimicked by the flight of a trapped bird swooping and soaring in the chancel behind him. The purity and simplicity of the timbre match the architecture even if God is not the musical inspiration. For one song he is joined by another man and the combination is electrifying, a familiar patterning from the traditional kan ha diskan (call and counter-call) of fest-noz music for dancing. My heart beats fast with extraordinary pleasure.

The second half begins with a female group from the Balkans, three tall, one short, all clad in costume and projecting powerful voices as they process down the nave smiling at members of the audience. On the stage they move and make dramatic gestures and facial movements, touching each other affectionately as they weave physical shapes to the rhythm of the songs. They are good, but for me the spell is completely broken. This is performance, knowing and calculated, where the first half was nothing but music.

Brittany Expert Guides

New town guides to Rennes and Quimper are now available from my Brittany Expert site (link opposite). Everything you need to prepare for a visit or just admire the wonders Brittany has to offer - lavishly illustrated and with a town centre map.

Saint Anne of Brittany

There is a strong tradition that Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary, was a native of the Armorican peninsula (before Brittany existed), coming from the area of Plonévez-Porzay in the Bay of Douarnenez. The famous folklorist Anatole Le Braz (b.1859) recorded the legend that she left the region as a widow and travelled to Judaea. There she married Joachim, father of Mary, but later returned to her native land, where a lesser story suggests Jesus and Peter came to visit.

In Christian tradition Anne is a minor figure of the Apocrypha. Her iconography in religious art shows a tall woman with veiled head, often teaching her young daughter Mary to read. In church of Lampaul-Guimiliau, a notable Parish Close in northern Finistere, an extraordinary decorative altar panel shows Anne resting in bed having just given birth to Mary, who is being washed by the midwife.

There may be a connection between Anne and the Celtic goddess Ana, and indeed she is honoured at the church of Commana by a magnificent 18th century baroque altarpiece. Here a statue of Anne is said to have been found in a stone trough, part of the same linguistic confusion that led to stories of saints arriving on Breton shores in stone boats, as in old Breton 'koum' is both a valley and a stone trough (and the Latin for little boat is 'cumba'). One glance at the local landscape gives the game away.

Anne is the female patron goddess of Brittany and widely venerated at shrines such as Ste-Anne d'Auray, the largest Catholic site in the region, honoured by a papal visit in the 1990s. It is documented how in 1623 a local peasant had a vision of the saint telling him where to dig up her staute and rebuild a former chapel. The bishop of Vannes believed the story and the shrine was constructed.

The photos all show images from Ste-Anne La Palud (Anne of the Marshes) on the Finistere coast where she is said to have landed on return from the Holy Land.