ath. In the morning their task was finished, and the Bretonne was scared
to see the enormous heap that had been piled together; but the other
quieted her fears, and helped her to climb to the top, whence soon the
happy mother beheld the vessel of her son. The fairy, her assistant, had
disappeared. This story evidently bears a vague tradition of this tumulus
having been raised by a woman, and of some maritime expedition made by him
for whom it was probably destined. The name of fairy is attached in
Brittany to everything--mountains, springs, grottoes, rocks; every accident
in nature is explained by a fairy origin.

The next object we saw is also attributed to the fairies, the great
menhir, called Men-er-Groach, or stone of the fairies. It is the largest
menhir known, but it has been broken into three pieces, some say by
thunder. Put together, it measures about 67 feet in length, and is 16 feet
in diameter. The wonder is how it was placed there, for it is little less
than the obelisk of St. Peter's, which took 800 to 900 men and 70 horses
nearly a year to raise,--a work which was the great triumph of Fontana the
engineer. The menhir is estimated to be one-third the height of Notre Dame
at Paris.

Lying also prostrate on the ground, by the side of it, is a smaller
menhir, which is, however, above 30 feet long.

[Illustration: 36. Hatchet-shaped Sculpture. Dol des Marchands.
Locmariaker.]

Close to these gigantic menhirs is the large dolmen (Breton, _daul_,
table, and _moen_, stone), known as the "Table de Cesar," or the "Dol des
Marchands." We walked under it to see the curious hatchet-shaped figure
sculptured on one of the upper stones. The common belief is that these
dolmens or table-stones were Druidic altars, and the guides will show you
the furrows for the blood of the human sacrifice to run down; but human
bones having been found under some of these dolmens, lead one to suppose
they were tombs. In the Scandinavian countries the peasants call them
"Giants' Graves."

The other great tumulus of Locmariaker is the Mont Heleu or Manne-Lud,
also opened in 1863, and supposed to have been the sepulchre of a number
of persons, perhaps of a whole generation. It has, like the Montagne de la
Fee, a galleried chamber or dolmen, the floor formed of an enormous slab
across the centre, on which is a sculpture resembling a celt; other
sculptured stones were found in the same chamber. At the other end of the
dolmen was an avenue