in of the race which conceived the demonology
of Brittany--and there are indications that it was not wholly
Celtic--that weird province of Faery bears unmistakable evidence
of having been deeply impressed by the Celtic imagination, if it
was not totally peopled by it, for its various inhabitants act in
the Celtic spirit, are moved by Celtic springs of thought and
fancy, and possess not a little of that irritability which has
forced anthropologists to include the Celtic race among those
peoples described as 'sanguine-bilious.' As a rule they are by
no means friendly or even humane, these fays of Brittany, and if
we find beneficent elves within the green forests of the duchy we
may feel certain that they are French immigrants, and therefore
more polished than the choleric native sprites.

_Broceliande_

Of all the many localities celebrated in the fairy lore of Brittany
none is so famous as Broceliande. Broceliande! "The sound is like a
bell," a far, faery chime in a twilit forest. In the name Broceliande
there seems to be gathered all the tender charm, the rich and haunting
mystery, the remote magic of Brittany and Breton lore. It is, indeed,
the title to the rarest book in the library of poetic and traditional
romance.

"I went to seek out marvels," said old Wace. "The forest I saw, the
land I saw. I sought marvels, but I found none. A fool I came back, a
fool I went; a fool I went, a fool I came back; foolishness I sought;
a fool I hold myself."[20]

Our age, even less sceptical than his, sees no folly in questing for
the beautiful, and if we expect no marvels, nor any sleight of faery,
however desirous we are, we do not hold it time lost to plunge into
the enchanted forest and in its magic half-gloom grope for, and
perchance grasp, dryad draperies, or be trapped in the filmy webs of
fancy which are spun in these shadows for unwary mortals.

Standing in dream-girt Broceliande of a hundred legends, its shadows
mirrored by dim meres that may never reflect the stars, one feels the
lure of Brittany more keenly even than when walking by its fierce and
jagged coasts menaced by savage grey seas, or when wandering on its
vast moors where the monuments of its pagan past stand in gigantic
disarray. For in the forest is the heart of Arthurian story, the
shrine of that wonder which has drawn thousands to this land of
legend, who, like old Wace, trusted to have found, if not elfin
marvels, at least matter of phantasy conju