The Devil’s Bridges

The legends of Brittany attribute marvellous origins to many of the structures that litter the local landscape. Some Neolithic megaliths were said to have been created by the enchanter Merlin while others were assigned to the magical korrigans and fairies or to the giant Gargantua. Many Medieval buildings were, sometimes rightly, attributed to those great builders, the Romans or else to the Knights Templar. Similarly, local lore often attests that various notable landmarks, predominantly bridges, churches and mills were built by the power of the Devil; some were even said to have demanded a human sacrifice.

A little south of the old Breton city of Nantes, a rocky formation is revealed during the hours of low tide seemingly stretching out from the village of Notre-Dame-de-Monts towards the Île d’Yeu lying some 16km (10 miles) offshore. This natural feature is known as Pont-Saint-Martin because local legend tells that this saint, frustrated at his inability to cross to the island to the west, accepted the Devil’s offer to build him a suitable bridge in just one night.

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Unfortunately, the bridge was not quite completed when the rooster crowed to nullify the Devil’s bargain. At that instant, the building blocks carried in the air by the Devil’s demons escaped their grasp and crashed down to earth; falling into the positions which they still occupy to this day. On the island, a different legend was one told, for here it was said that the bridge was built by the Devil at the request of the islanders who had agreed, in exchange for the bridge, to surrender to him the body and soul of the first to cross. As soon as the bridge was complete, the wily islanders threw a big cat upon it; the Devil’s bargain was thus fully honoured. Angry at being outwitted by simple fishermen, the Devil returned during the following night and destroyed the bridge whose debris can still be seen at low tide today.

A similar legend is found further west along the coast in the Etel estuary between the towns of Auray and Locmiquélic, the upper reaches of which contains the small picturesque island of Saint-Cado. Tradition asserts that the island was once a sanctuary for the 6^th century saint who sometimes had need of peace from the bustling monastery he had established nearby. To ease his passage to the island, a small bridge was built but this structure did not survive its first tempest and so another construction was started under the supervision of the Devil himself. In exchange for his labours, the Devil demanded of Cado the soul of the first creature to cross it. The instant the bridge was completed, the saint is said to have thrown a cat on it, much to the Devil’s disgust.

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Another of the early evangelists, Saint Gwenole, is also associated with the Devil and a bargain for a bridge. It is said that Gwenole had grown weary of making the difficult journey between the Île de Sein, lying off Brittany’s Atlantic coast, and his abbey at Landévennec. He therefore resolved to build a bridge that would connect the island to the mainland and it was while considering this project that he was approached by a handsome young man whose sweet tongue and cloven hoofs betrayed the presence of the Devil himself.

“I want to go to that island I see in the distance. I know you are planning a bridge and I shall use it when it is built,” said the Devil. Saint Gwenole was adamant that he would never allow the Devil to reach the innocent souls on the island and declared that he would not now build the bridge if there was a chance the Devil might use it. “Then you will be denounced as a liar, for you gave the people your word. You will lose your holiness and will be doomed to become my disciple because the lie will stain you forever,” sneered the Prince of Liars.

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Seeing Gwenole’s dilemma, God offered him the opportunity to perform a marvellous miracle and so the saint quickly threw a bridge of ice across to the distant island. Gloating in triumph and enticed by all the pure souls that he would now be able to corrupt, the Devil rushed onto the bridge but with his first few steps, his burning hooves melted the ice and he was cast down into the swirling waters below. His violent reaction at being tricked accounts for the fierce currents that still separate the island from the mainland today.

Although no longer the seat of a bishop, the 14^th century cathedral in the northern town of Tréguier is the site of another curious deal with the Devil. Legend tells that the priests responsible for supervising the building’s construction had exhausted all their funds of money when it came time to build the steeple and so reluctantly accepted the aid of the Devil. In exchange for building the steeple, he was granted the souls of all who died within sound of the cathedral bells between Sunday Mass and Vespers. The priests soon relented their sacrifice of so many souls and adopted a cunning solution; no sooner had Mass concluded than the cantor intoned the first psalm of Vespers.

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The notion that the Devil demands a heavy price in exchange for his assistance is a key feature of the tales highlighted above but all may not be as it might seem. For instance, if we strip away the Christian overtones of these tales, what remains is an impression that the first to cross a bridge and perhaps by extension, enter any new building is expected to surrender their life as some form of sacrifice.

The Scottish anthropologist Sir James Fraser, in his marvellous book The Golden Bough (1890) noted: “In modern Greece, when the foundation of a new building is being laid, it is the custom to kill a cock, a ram or a lamb and to let its blood flow on the foundation-stone, under which the animal is afterwards buried. The object of the sacrifice is to give strength and stability to the building.” The prevalence of similar practices throughout the history of the Germanic people was also highlighted by the German author Jacob Grimm in his Teutonic Mythology (1835). Grimm also notes how human sacrifices were formerly made at river crossings to bring good luck and to act as protective spirits; some unfortunates were even walled-up alive in basements and ramparts for the same end.

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The strength and longevity of important constructions was believed only assured if certain rites had been performed at the intended site beforehand. Such rituals were designed to appease the ancient deities on whose domains humanity was encroaching and also to implore the favour of those who might have an influence on the solidity of a structure or on the happiness of its occupants. The vestiges of likely ancient rituals can be seen in some of the superstitious practices noted just a few hundred years ago, such as burying a calf under the entrance to a barn, a horse in newly opened graveyards or a cat under the corner stone of a house.

The Breton artist and author Paul Sébillot noted, at the end of the 19^th century, a belief around the town of Dinan that when the ancient Romans had completed a road, they sacrificed a man and offered his blood to the spirits of the earth in order to ensure the strength of their work. Little evidence exists to suggest that human immolation has been practiced in Brittany since the earliest times but there are some intriguing references in the region’s folklore.

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In 1888, a journal published in Paris brought to the attention of its readers an account of the popular tradition surrounding the failure to maintain a bridge at Rosporden in western Brittany. It was claimed that each new bridge was swept away by floodwater almost as soon as it had been completed. Confounded by the fact that their best efforts were meeting with no success, the people of the town suspected witchcraft and consulted a witch who told them that if they wanted to have a strong bridge, they would need to bury a four year old boy alive in the foundations. It was also necessary for the child to carry with him a blessed candle in one hand and a piece of bread in the other.

Sadly, a desperate mother, willing to submit her child for sacrifice, was found and the little boy was walled-up alive as directed. The bridge was duly completed and, for centuries, has withstood all the ravages of the elements. It is said that the boy’s mother went insane shortly after the sacrifice of her son and that the little boy’s cries are still to be heard in the wailing of the winds and the sobs of the rains that fall upon Rosporden today.

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A similar legend is associated with the Pont Callec bridge near Caudan in southern Brittany; to save the bridge from constantly collapsing, a young boy, bought for a high price in Scotland, was locked inside a barrel buried under one of the bridge supports. The child’s sacrifice was said to have ensured the longevity of the bridge and the health of those who crossed it. The same solution was said to have been resorted to at another bridge in Morbihan; having collapsed several times, the sacrifice of a living man immediately reversed the fortunes of the builders.

The notion of the necessity for a sacrifice to ensure the success of a bridge was also noted further north in the central town of Pontivy. Here, local legend tells that when a bridge was built around the town, a sacrifice was once offered to the deities of the river; an offering that included as many men as the bridge had piers. It was said that prisoners were mostly chosen for this dubious honour and that it was customary for the victims to be buried under the first stone of each pier.

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Offering sacrifices to the waters, or to the gods who could control them, was once fairly widespread, with many examples cited by the writers of antiquity through to the anthropologists of the modern era. While we may have no reports of human sacrifices along the Breton coast, traditions of offerings made to freshwater divinities were noted in the south of Brittany. Indeed, even Christian ceremonies to bless the sea were seen here regularly into the 20^th century.

It was once believed here that the Breton peninsula sat atop an underground ocean and that vast subterranean passages connected this underground sea with the waters surrounding the coast. The fear that the earth might collapse into this inland sea, at any moment, was particularly noted in Morbihan; specifically a swathe of country that stretched from Vannes on the south coast to Pontivy some 50km (31 miles) to the north. Interestingly, people also thought the reason that their homes had not disappeared under the waves was thanks to certain sacrifices that had been made.

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In this part of the region, it was said that every seven years, an unknown lady, richly dressed, travelled the land in search of a poor and large family whose father and mother would agree, for a consideration, to sell her one of their children. Once this child had been obtained, the mysterious woman contained it in a barrel with a three-pound loaf of bread and a large lit candle; the sealed barrel was then delivered to the waves.

The ocean seized its proffered gift and tossed the barrel around for seven years before allowing it to be seen again by the eyes of man. The recovered barrel was opened and if the child has only lost its arms, it was once again cast to the waves for another seven years. If the barrel was empty, the sacrifice was thought consumed but the divinity of the sea required fresh prey and so the unknown lady set out again on her ghoulish mission. It was said at the end of the 19^th century that one of the sea’s last victims was bought from Guern; a village very close to Pontivy.

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According to another version of the tale, the sacrifice was offered, not to the sea itself, but to the ‘Eye of the Sea’ which was located in the countryside but which communicated directly with the ocean. Each year, a new-born child, recently baptized, was sealed inside a barrel with a blessed candle and a pound of bread and delivered as an offering to the guardian of the waters on the eve of the New Year. The ‘Eye of the Sea’ was thought to be connected to the Blavet River to whose waters the barrel was consigned. Unfortunately, the power of such a sacrifice was thought only to appease the water deities for a year. With life, light and sustenance consumed, another offering was required and the sacrifice repeated again until God took pity on the bereaved mothers and transformed the ‘Eye of the Sea’ into a clear fountain.

Sometimes, the rituals and offerings made to ensure the longevity of a building or the health of its inhabitants was far more pedestrian, even if their origins were likely equally as ancient. In Brittany, builders often buried prehistoric stone tools, popularly known as Thunder Stones, under the foundations or near the threshold of buildings. Such talismans have also been discovered hidden in the walls of medieval churches, above stable doors and even inside old hearths.

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The remains of animals, predominantly toads and cats, have also been discovered in the walls and under the foundations of many old buildings here. Perhaps these were substitutes for the human sacrifices of old or perhaps it was the sacrifice of a life that was important; the life force, whatever it was, giving vitality and protection to the builder’s edifice? A similar tradition was once noted around Pontivy where it was customary, in the 18^th century, to sprinkle the foundations of houses and churches with animal blood, mainly that of an ox. Some 45km (28 miles) away, in the southern town of Quimperlé, the foundations of new houses were regularly sprinkled with the blood of a rooster as late as the early years of the 19^th century.

Formerly, belief in the importance of paying due homage to the ancient guardians, of waters and other places, was profoundly inscribed into the Breton psyche and it is interesting to consider whether such deeply ingrained traditions were not at the root of the once popular belief that death must pass through a house for it to be safely inhabited. In western Brittany, it was thought that death personified, the Ankou, demanded this tribute and that as soon as the stones of the threshold had been set, the Ankou waited to claim the soul of the first person to cross it.

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According to local tradition, there was only one way to keep death away and that was to give him some other life and so people would ensure that a hen or a cat were the first to cross a completed threshold although, in some parts of the region, an egg was deemed sufficient for this purpose. Once safely into a new home, it was important for the new occupants to assuage the spirits of the place by leaving, in each corner, an offering of a piece of bread and a little salt. Over time, such concerns were forgotten, leaving just a quaint superstitious ritual to attract good luck upon the household.

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