and such astounding fools in our judgments on
each other, that we cannot distinguish the sower
from the reaper, nor see how, if it had not been
for him who set the seed, we should never have
been invited to the banquets of him who sheared
the harvest. All because of that dull-eyed,
open-mouthed, crooked-clawed fetish which we
have set up over against the workshops of
mankind, and which, if any great thinker or heroic
doer does not incontinently bow down to and
worship, we take from off its peg and beat
about his ears till he falls, destroyed by the
fetish of success, to which he has not paid his
dues.

SUPERSTITIONS OF SULIAC.

AT the extremity of the parish of St. Suliac,
on the right bank of the Rance, and at the
entrance of the creek of La Couailles, on a
point of rock jutting out on the shore, is a
grotto called the Den of the Fairy of Bec-
Dupuy.

This excavation is raised some feet above the
level of the soil. Often at sunrise or sunset is
seen rising from it a vapour, white, blue, green,
rose-colour, which rises, falls, spreads, floats,
melts, and finally displays the form of a woman
divinely beautiful—the Fairy, or the Lady
Dupuy, she is called in the Brittany country. Often
she roams on the shore; her garments glitter with
all the colours of the rainbow; and the stars
pale before the diamonds that crown her brow.
Sometimes she sits on the turf of the cliffs, and
dreamingly plucks the petals of the white daisies,
which the wind carries away to other shores,
with the odour of the wild thyme and the
marjoram which her rosy fingers press. She passes
light as a bird over the tall grasses of the downs;
she speaks to no one, and flies from the sight of
men.

Formerly she was sovereign of the place, now
on the rocks she weeps for her lost power; the
human voice alarms her, and she flies to moan
with the winds in the deepest caverns.

Many centuries has she seen pass over the
mountains, and yet her polished brow is smooth
as if it had known eighteen summers at the
most.

She saw Julius Cæsar and the Gauls; she saw
the Druids fly before the servants of the true
God; she saw the cross raised on the summit
of the hills of Brittany, her country, and those
who worshipped her disappear one by one in
the tomb; she saw her altars fall, and the walls
of her temples crumble. Her power has faded
like the mists of a spring morning before the
sunshine. Alone she remains on the shore, and
wanders in the mournful penance to which she
is condemned, until the gates of heaven shall
be opened to her.

At her voice of old the winds were stilled,
the waves calmed, the sea became smooth and
clear as a crystal lake. Every fisherman, ere he
started on an expedition, came to the beach to
offer his homage to the goddess who rendered
the wind favourable and the fishing successful.
The wives, the daughters, the sisters, the sweethearts
of the absent ones, came to lay garlands
and flowers at the entrance of her impenetrable
grotto, guarded by a pack of invisible hounds,
whose savage barkings warned off any who
might be so imprudent as to attempt to
penetrate into the mysteries of the place.

Since the Saviour, dying for us on the cross,
destroyed the worship of idols, the Fairy's
Grotto far more rarely sees her than of old, and
when she appears in her ancient domains the
apparition is supposed to augur ill. Often does
she leave behind traces of vengeance, and
instead of protecting human beings she
frequently injures them, and is pitiless for their
tears.

Long ago some shepherds returning from the
pastures at the fall of day, found a young girl
expiring at the entrance of the grotto. They
questioned her, and with the utmost difficulty
she made the following recital:

"Long have I been in the habit of coming
to this place to meet my betrothed who lives at
the other side of the water. Never once had
he failed to keep our tryste until three days
ago, at which time the fairy appeared to me.
From that time I have watched for him in vain;
the wind and the sea have been against him, but,
nevertheless, I should still have hoped had not
the fairy reappeared. Last night at moonrise I
heard a little noise behind me, like the fluttering
of wings. I sprang up, thinking to see him
I waited for, imagining that his approach had
frightened some sea-bird hidden among the
reeds.

"Before me stood the Lady Dupuy. I
strove to fly but my strength failed me, I fell to
the ground and remained there as you have
found me. My days are numbered; bring me
a priest; the fairy said words to me which leave
me no doubt of my approaching fate. My
betrothed is no more! What has life left for
me? Go, friends, the time presses, and my
strength is failing me."

The shepherds carried her on their shoulders
to the village: she sent for her confessor,
repeated to him all that has been already related,
and, having received the sacrament, expired.

The Curé of St. Suliac, followed by a
numerous assemblage, cross and banners at
their head, proceeded to the grotto, and there
summoned the fairy to appear. Three times the
call was repeated, and (as, perhaps, may not
seem inexplicable, all things considered) no
result being obtained, he exorcised her, and
ordered her in the name of God never to reappear
in the place.

Nothing was visible, but a wild wail issued
from the mountain, and imprecations which froze
the blood of the listeners were repeated by the
echoes of the valleys of the Rance, and no one
doubted that, but for the presence of the pastor,
the flock would never have reached the fold in
safety.

Since then, the fairy has occasionally been
seen wandering in the moonlight, but she flies at