_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, quite like the woman who died at Auray.
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.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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