red up by the legendary
associations of Broceliande.

But we must beware of each step in these twilit recesses, for the fays
of Brittany are not as those of other lands. Harsh things are spoken
of them. They are malignant, say the forest folk. The note of Brittany
is scarce a joyous one. It is bitter-sweet as a sad chord struck on an
ancient harp.

The fays of Brittany are not the friends of man. They are not 'the
good people,' 'the wee folk'; they have no endearing names, the gift
of a grateful peasantry. Cold and hostile, they hold aloof from human
converse, and, should they encounter man, vent their displeasure at
the interruption in the most vindictive manner.

Whether the fairies of Brittany be the late representatives of the
gods of an elder day or merely animistic spirits who have haunted
these glades since man first sheltered in them, certain it is that in
no other region in Europe has Mother Church laid such a heavy ban upon
all the things of faery as in this strange and isolated peninsula. A
more tolerant ecclesiastical rule might have weaned them to a timid
friendship, but all overtures have been discouraged, and to-day they
are enemies, active, malignant, swift to inflict evil upon the pious
peasant because he is pious and on the energetic because of his
industry.

_The Korrigan_

Among those forest-beings of whom legend speaks such malice none is
more relentless than the Korrigan, who has power to enmesh the heart
of the most constant swain and doom him to perish miserably for love
of her. Beware of the fountains and of the wells of this forest of
Broceliande, for there she is most commonly to be encountered, and you
may know her by her bright hair--"like golden wire," as Spenser says
of his lady's--her red, flashing eyes, and her laughing lips. But if
you would dare her wiles you must come alone to her fountain by night,
for she shuns even the half-gloom that is day in shadowy Broceliande.
The peasants when they speak of her will assure you that she and her
kind are pagan princesses of Brittany who would have none of
Christianity when the holy Apostles brought it to Armorica, and who
must dwell here under a ban, outcast and abhorred.

_The Seigneur of Nann_[21]

The Seigneur of Nann was high of heart, for that day his bride of a
year had presented him with two beautiful children, a boy and a girl,
both white as May-blossom. In his joy the happy father asked his wife
her heart's desire, and sh