Observations placeholder

The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, [1911]

Testimony of a Breton Seeress.--There lives in the little hamlet of Kerlois, less than a mile from Carnac, a Breton seeress, a woman who since eight years of age has been privileged to behold the world invisible and its inhabitants.

She is Madame Eugénie Le Port, now forty-two years old, and what she tells of things seen in this invisible world which surrounds her, might easily be taken for Irish legends about fairies. Knowing very little French, because she is thoroughly Breton, Madame Le Port described her visions in her own native tongue, and her eldest daughter acted as interpreter. I had known the good woman since the previous winter, and so we were able to converse familiarly; and as I sat in her own little cottage, in company with her husband and daughters, and with M. Lemort, who acted as recording secretary, this is what she said in her clear earnest manner in answer to my questions:--

'We believe that the spirits of our ancestors surround us and live with us. One day on a road from Carnac I encountered a woman of Kergoellec who had been dead eight days. I asked her to move to one side so that I could pass, and she vanished. This was eleven o'clock in the morning. I saw her at another time in the Marsh of Breno; I spoke, but she did not reply.

On the route from Plouharnel (near Carnac) I saw in the day-time the funeral of a woman who did not die until fifteen days afterwards. I recognized perfectly all the people who took part in it; but the person with me saw nothing.

Another time, near three o'clock in the afternoon, and eight days before her death, I saw upon the same route the funeral of a woman who was drowned.

And I have seen a phantom horse going to the sabbath, and as if forced along against its will, for it reared and pawed the earth.

When Pierre Rouzic of Kerlois died, I saw a light of all colours between heaven and earth, the very night of his death.

I have seen a woman asleep whose spirit must have been free, for I saw it hovering outside her body. She was not awakened [at the time] for fear that the spirit would not find its body again.'

In answer to my question as to how long these various visions usually lasted, Madame Le Port said:--'They lasted about a quarter of an hour, or less, and all of them disappeared instantaneously.'

As Madame Le Port now seemed unable to recall more of her visions, I finally asked her what she thought about corrigans, and she replied:--'I believe they exist as some special kind of spirits, though I have never seen any.'