_Origin of the 'Morgan'._--The following legendary origin is attributed
to the _Morgan_ by M. Goulven Le Scour, our Carnac witness:--'Following
the old people and the Breton legends, the _Morgan_ (_Mari Morgan_ in
Breton) was Dahut, the daughter of King Gradlon, who was ruler of the
city of Is. Legend records that when Dahut had entered at night the
bedchamber of her father and had cut from around his neck the cord which
held the key of the sea-dike flood-gates, and had given this key to the
Black Prince, under whose evil love she had fallen, and who, according
to belief, was no other than the Devil, St. Guenolé soon afterwards
began to cry aloud, "Great King, arise! The flood-gates are open, and
the sea is no longer restrained!"[83] Suddenly the old King Gradlon
arose, and, leaping on his horse, was fleeing from the city with St.
Guenolé, when he encountered his own daughter amid the waves. She
piteously begged aid of her father, and he took her up behind him on the
horse; but St. Guenolé, seeing that the waters were gaining on them,
said to the king, "Throw into the sea the demon you have behind you, and
we shall be saved!" Thereupon Gradlon flung his daughter into the abyss,
and he and St. Guenolé were saved. Since that time, the fishermen
declare that they have seen, in times of rough sea and clear moonlight,
Dahut, daughter of King Gradlon, sitting on the rocks combing her fair
hair and singing, in the place where her father flung her. And to-day
there is recognized under the Breton name _Marie Morgan_, the daughter
who sings amid the sea.'
_Breton Fairyland Legends._--In a legend concerning Mona and the king of
the _Morgans_, much like the Christabel story of English poets, we have
a picture of a fairyland not under ground, but under sea; and this
legend of Mona and her _Morgan_ lover is one of the most beautiful of
all the fairy-tales of Brittany.[84] Another one of Luzel's legends,
concerning a maiden who married a dead man, shows us Fairyland as a
world of the dead. It is a very strange legend, and one directly bearing
on the Psychological Theory; for this dead man, who is a dead priest,
has a palace in a realm of enchantment, and to enter his country one
must have a white fairy-wand with which to strike 'in the form of a
cross' two blows upon the rock concealing the entrance.[84] M. Paul
Sébillot records from Upper Brittany a tradition that beneath the
sea-waves there one can see a subterranean world containing fields and
villages and beautiful castles; and it is so pleasant a world that
mortals going there find years no longer than days.[85]
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