Merlin’s Enchanted Forest
banner image by Willgard Krause (Pixabay)
“Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver,
Here the fountain runs forever,
Here I am not wise, nor clever,
as in Camelot so grand.
Here the oaks and here the holly,
Here the summer cloudburst’s volley,
Turn my learning into folly;
Here in green Brocéliande.”
If you drive south from St Malo in Brittany down into the heart of Brittany, after about 90 minutes you’ll be halfway between the towns of Mauron and Ploërmel. Look for the sign to Néant-Sur-Yvel and turn left, travelling on to the sleepy village of Tréhorenteuc on the edge of the Forêt de Paimpont. You’re in Brocéliande, Merlin’s magical forest. It was the setting of popular medieval Arthurian romances, especially by the poet Chrétien de Troyes’. Now, the mighty forest is shrunk down to the forest of Paimpont.
picture: a map of Broceliande
How did Merlin get here? Well, for one thing, Brittany is Celtic. It was settled by peoples from Wales, Cornwall and Ireland between the 5th and 7th centuries, some fleeing from Saxon invaders after the Romans pulled out of Britain. They settled a land called Armorica and called it Brittany (‘Little Britain’).
The earliest mentions of Merlin come from the Welsh Marches. In 1130 Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote a hugely popular faux history of Britain that created the character of Merlin. He changed the character of the prophet driven mad by war who appeared in earlier stories from Wales and southern Scotland. He drew on Nennius, writing 200 years earlier, though he changed details. He included the tale of Vortigern and the fighting dragons but changed the boy’s name to Merlin because he thought ‘Myrddin’ sounded too much like the French word for ‘shit’.
picture: Illumination of a 15th-century manuscript of Historia Regum Britanniae showing king of the Britons Vortigern and Ambros watching the fight between two dragons
Once Geoffrey’s books were translated into Anglo French, Arthurian legend took off in France. The legends we know are built around what is known as the Vulgate Cycle, especially the Vulgate Merlin and the Suite de Merlin, written in 13th-century France. They drew on Geoffrey of Monmouth’s faux history, written in 1130 in the Welsh Marches. Writing in 15th-century England, Thomas Malory drew upon these French books for his Morte d’Arthur, which influenced Tennyson in the 19th century to write his poetry cycle Idylls of the King, and T H White to write the Once and Future King in the mid-20th century. Disney drew on White’s book for The Sword in the Stone.
picture: Merlin and Arthur in Disney’s ‘The Sword in the Stone’
The legends about Merlin became embedded in places in Brocéliande: Merlin met Viviane at the spring of Barenton, and he stood on the stone there to conjure rain. The people of the forest have woven these sites into their lives. Until 1954, they processed to Barenton in times of drought, to stand on the stone hoping to make it rain.
Viviane has many names and we’re more familiar with Nimue. In earlier tales she’s fae, though that changes to human in some later tales. Merlin fell asleep under a tree by the spring and woke to find her beside him. He fell in love and taught her magic that she later turned against him. Depending on which tale you read, she either imprisoned or killed him. In Brocéliande, he’s imprisoned under a lake in the forest, in the Val Sans Retour (the Lost Valley).
picture: Barenton spring (author’s copyright)
The valley earned its name because compasses don’t work well there due to the quantity of iron ore in the land. Or so they say. Sadly, the valley was badly burnt by two major fires in 1990. As part of the restoration, the regional authority commissioned an artist to produce a symbol of renewal among the devastation. He chose a dead tree whose charred remains looked like a stag’s antlers, and covered it with 5,000 pieces of gold leaf. The Arbre D’Or (Golden Tree) is surrounded by four or five stumps of blackened oak to be both hope and a warning against thoughtlessness.
picture: the Golden Tree (author’s copyright)
Merlin’s Tomb was a small Neolithic site with 6 stones originally, which had been largely destroyed during the 19th century, supposedly by people hunting for treasure. Once there was a spindly tree (now long gone) growing between two stones. It was hung with rags and the earth between the stones were full of letters to Merlin. One was a cry from the heart for the love of a youth who was heedless of the writer’s amour, another more like a shopping list for Santa Claus, full of desire for various consumer products. And, of course, there were tea lights and candles.
pictures: Merlin’s Tomb by Raphodon (Wikimedia Commons) and photo of offerings by author
Not far from Merlin’s tomb, there’s a spring known as The Fountain of Youth. According to the sign placed there by the Regional authority, the local people brought their children at night on the summer solstice to be recorded and blessed. If the child was brought the day after, if had to wait until the next year and so its age was recorded as a year less. There is no indication of how the church regarded this practice, though it apparently went on until at least the 19th century.
picture: Fountain of Youth (author’s copyright)
Downstream from the Fountain of Youth lies a small quarry. The pit bottom slopes slightly and there are crevices in the sheer sides of stone around it. These crevices and the pit floor were dotted with miniature dolmen. More small stones were used to mark out a large triskelion on the pit floor and the initials “BZH” beneath it. This stands for Breizh, which is Brittany in Breton. It’s a political statement of independence from France.
pictures: stones in a quarry marking out a political statement (author’s copyright)
Medieval romanticism reinterprets Neolithic sites for its own purposes, and the causes of modern society reinterprets medieval tales and Celtic symbols in its turn. Take the church at Tréhorenteuc, which is devoted to a local saint. It’s also a shrine to the legends of Brocéliande and the Holy Grail. That’s all down to one priest.
Abbé Henri Gillard arrived in the forest in 1942, sent to the poorest, least religious parish. He set about converting it into a temple of the Holy Grail, commissioning paintings for the stations of the cross that placed the story of Christ’s passion in Brocéliande, with a prominent Morgan le Fay. Later, he commissioned stained glass windows telling the story of the Holy Grail, mixing in Celtic symbols.
pictures: paintings of Arthurian legends and one of the stations of the cross from Tréhorenteuc church (author’s copyright)
Although he filled the church with Arthurian motifs, he couldn’t ignore the local saint, St Onenne. After all, the church was named after her. More importantly, she was important to the local people. She was older than the church, having been a Celtic figure who was later Christianised, like Brigit in Ireland and Melangell in Wales. Where Melangell protected a hare, Onenne’s honour was saved by a flock of geese. and every year a goose leads a procession from the church to the local spring. Many forest folk regard the spring as sacred and there are seasons when less Christian offerings are made. So, the priest commissioned stained glass windows to tell the story of Onenn… but they are off to the sides. The great window behind the altar is Arthurian.
picture: altar window in the Church of St Onenne, Tréhorenteuc (by Erwan Corre, Wikimendia Commons)
picture: statue of Henri Gillard outside Tréhorenteuc church (author’s copyright)
Eventually the church removed Abbé Gillard and sent him elsewhere. He returned to Brocéliande each year to visit his people, his church and the forest. When he died, the people put up a statue to him in front of the church, and still regard him as their true priest. The priest of Brocéliande.
Alexa Duir (c) 2006