and a falcon
Brittany is on fire, blood flows, and there is great dole among the
people."

On the summit of the Black Mountain thirty stout peasants had gathered
to celebrate the ancient feast of the good St John. Among them was
Kado the Striver, who stood there gravely leaning on his iron
pitchfork. For a while he looked upon his comrades; then he opened his
lips:

"What say you, fellow-peasants? Do you intend to pay this tax? As for
me, I shall certainly not pay it. I had much rather be hanged.
Nevermore shall I pay this unjust tax. My sons go naked because of it,
my flocks grow less and less. No more shall I pay. I swear it by the
red brands of this fire, by Saint Kado my patron, and by Saint John."

"My fortunes are broken, I am completely ruined," growled one of his
companions. "Before the year is out I shall be compelled to beg my
bread."

Then all rose at once as if by a common impulse.

"None of us will pay this tax! We swear it by the Sun and by the Moon,
and by the great sea which encircles this land of Brittany!"

Kado, stepping out from the circle, seized a firebrand, and holding it
aloft cried: "Let us march, comrades, and strike a blow for freedom!"

The enthusiasm of his companions burst out afresh. Falling into loose
ranks they followed him. His wife marched by his side in the first
rank, carrying a reaping-hook on her shoulder and singing as she
marched.

"Quickly, quickly, my children! We go to strike a blow for liberty!
Have I brought thirty sons into the world to beg their bread, to carry
firewood or to break stones, or bear burdens like beasts? Are they to
till the green land and the grey land with bare feet while the rich
feed their horses, their hunting-dogs, and their falcons better than
they are fed? No! It is to slay the oppressors that I have borne so
many sons!"

Quickly they descended the mountains, gathering numbers as they went.
Now they were three thousand strong, five thousand strong, and when
they arrived at Langoad nine thousand strong. When they came to
Guerande they were thirty thousand strong. The houses of those who had
ground them down were wrapped in flames, fiercely ends the old ballad,
"and the bones of those who had oppressed them cracked, like those of
the damned in Tartarus."

History tells us nothing concerning Kado the Striver, but it is most
unlikely that he is a mere figment of popular imagination. What
history does record, however, is that the wicked Duche