[Illustration: Plan of the Dolmen Chapel near Plouaret.] The Bretons have a ballad, _Gwerz_, concerning the former monument. It is a miraculous structure dating from the Creation of the World: "Who will doubt that it was built by the hand of the Almighty? You ask me when and how it was constructed. I reply that I believe that when the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all were created, then was this also made." Although the dolmen is no longer underground, I must refer to that of Confolens near S. Germain-sur-Vienne, because it was originally under a tumulus. It is a dolmen, of which only the cover, a huge mass of granite remains intact, in an island of the Vienne. Underneath the slab are sculptured a stone axe with handle, and one without, also a cross. The capstone rests on four pillars of the twelfth century. Mr. Ferguson erroneously claimed the dolmen as evidence that rude stone monuments continued to be erected till late in the Middle Ages. But, in fact, the pillars are not of equal length, their capitals are not in line, nor are their bases. What is obvious is that the rude stone supports were removed one by one, and the Gothic pillars inserted in their place were cut exactly to the length required. Thus altered, the dolmen served as a baldachin or canopy over the stone Christian altar that is still in place beneath it. About this monument a chapel had been erected with apse to the east, measuring 36 feet by 15 feet. This has been destroyed, but the foundations remained till recently. The cross on the capstone was cut when the prehistoric monument was converted to use by Christians. To descend to the floor of the chapel a flight of steps had been constructed. The chapel was dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen. In Egypt, in the Levant, cave-churches are common. The chapel of Agios Niketos, in Crete, is now merely a smoke begrimed grotto beneath a huge mass of rock on the mountain side. The roof is elaborately ornamented with paintings representing incidents in the Gospel story, and the legend of S. Nicolas. Though it is no longer employed as a church, an event that is said to have happened some centuries ago invests it with special regard by the natives. The church was crowded with worshippers on the eve of the feast of the patron, when the fires which the villagers who had assembled there had lighted near the entrance, where they were bivouacking for the night, attracted the attention of a Barbary corsair, then cruising off the island, and guided him to the spot unobserved. Suddenly and unexpectedly he and his crew, having stolen up the hill, burst upon the crowd of frightened Cretans. The Corsairs thereupon built up the entrance, and waited for day, the better to secure their captives for embarkation. But happily there was another exit from the cavern behind the altar, and by this the whole congregation escaped into another cave, and thence by a passage to a further opening, through which they stole out unobserved by the pirates.