The Healing Stones of Brittany

The mysterious nature and brooding presence of the thousands of prehistoric megaliths that litter the landscape of Brittany have long fascinated both locals and visitors alike. Veneration of the region’s standing stones and ancient monuments continued for centuries after the arrival of Christianity. Unfortunately, we do not know why the cult of stone remained popular here into the modern era.

Perhaps the mystical aura of these massive blocks of stone retained ancient associations with death and the afterlife or possibly the stones held the folk-memory of a ritual significance once important in the religion of the later Celts? Whatever the reason, it is clear that the ancient stones retained a special place in the Breton imagination. They were closely associated with supernatural beings such as korrigans and fairies; entities who were often said to be spirits from a time before the arrival of Christianity.

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In addition to supernatural forces, the region’s ancient stones were also believed to possess the power to influence the lives of the common people. This is perhaps most clearly manifested in the many folk beliefs and old superstitions that linked the stones with good fortune and those most important, yet often most elusive, fundamental human needs: true love and good health.

Belief in the healing power of stone was once widespread here and numerous rituals connected with healing stones were noted as extant in Brittany as late as the end of the 19th century. For instance, young men would rub their loins against the Iron Age stele in the churchyard of Saint Samson in Pleumeur-Bodou in the hope of improving their strength; a similar ritual was noted at a rock of the same name in nearby Trégastel. Men would also rub their shoulders against the menhir in Landunvez for the same purpose.

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To ward off rheumatism, people rubbed their backs against the leading stone of the dolmen at Guimaëc and on the menhir in the churchyard at Saint-Guyomard. In Beuzec-Cap-Sizun lies a recumbent menhir some 8 meters long, which was traditionally held to be the vessel on which Saint Conogan, a noted healer, arrived there by sea in the 5^th century.  To be rid of rheumatism and all kinds of muscular pain, visitors came to lie upon the stone and to rub themselves against it. Water from the saint’s fountain nearby was also said to possess the power of curing eye ailments.

The feet of children who had difficulties walking were placed into the small depressions found on a rock near Ménéac, while the mother placed her foot and knee in another hollow; divine healing was thought assured in the belief that these depressions had been made by the Virgin Mary. Another healing stone was found 50km south in Plumergat where those suffering from colic invoked Saint Stephen while lying on a stone basin.

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Returning north, a stone known as Le Lit de Saint-Idunet (Saint Idunet’s Bed) near Pluzunet was the scene of a ritual that required parents to roll their feeble children and those struggling to walk in a large depression in the rock that once supposedly served as a temporary bed for the 6^th century saint. Healing was not thought assured unless the parents whipped the patient with a broom which they afterwards used to sweep the surface of the stone.

A variant ritual, noted in the early-20^th century by the Breton author Charles Le Goffic, saw parents place their children on the stone bed and then taking, in the palm of their hand, water from the adjacent saint’s fountain. The child’s body was then sprinkled three times with this water and its loins rubbed while the earth next to the stone was itself sprinkled three times.  

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For hundreds of years, children with walking difficulties were also taken to the church at Pluneret in southern Brittany and placed on a large quartzite boulder known as Le Bateau de Sainte-Avoye (Boat of Saint Avoye) housed there; reputed to be the stone vessel once used by the saint to cross to Brittany. Here, the ritual involved seating the child inside the trough-like impression found in the stone to ensure that its bared lower back and loins made direct contact with the rock. Such contact was said necessary for the patient to be imbued with strength from the 3^rd century Christian martyr who endured terrible tortures before being beheaded. Some accounts say that it was necessary for the supplicant to offer a pure white hen as tribute – presumably to the priest or church warden?

An ancient menhir that once stood in a field near the hamlet of Kerangolet had, by the 1820s, been re-sited to rest within a chapel in the town of Gouesnou; a move likely inspired to remind parishioners of God’s omnipresence, as the stone was traditionally held to possess miraculous virtues. Popularly attributed to the 7^th century British evangelist Saint Gouesnou, the stone, roughly two metres in diameter, was pierced through the middle by a hole some 15cm (6 inches) wide and into this cavity visitors inserted their withered or maimed limbs in confidence of a speedy cure. 

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Touching a stone that once stood near the Saint Egarec chapel in Lampaul-Plouarzel was believed to cure ear problems, while gout was thought cured if the sufferer rubbed their shoulder against the menhir of Roshuel. The notion that direct, personal contact with stone was necessary to ensure that one successfully gained the outcome sought was also noted in many old fertility rituals here.

On moonless nights, women who experienced difficulties conceiving would visit the western town of Locronan and lie, arms outstretched with faces turned towards the heavens, upon a great stone not far from town that popular superstition claimed once served as Saint Ronan’s mare. In the latter part of the 19^th century, it was noted that newly married couples also visited the stone, against which they rubbed their abdomens in hopes that their union would be blessed with children.

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During the time of the Troménie – the grand procession that takes place during the Pardon of Saint Ronan – people suffering with fever or subject to nervous disorders would circle the rock three times before sitting on the stone in expectation of relief from their afflictions.

Two other stones, one a monolith, that stood in fields outside Locronan were also once visited by women anxious to bear children; in both places the ritual seems to have involved rubbing their bare bellies against the stone. Similar practices were also known to have taken place in other places, such as at the menhir of Kervéatou near Plouarzel, the menhir of Moëlan, the menhir near Saint-Cado’s Chapel near Ploemel and that of Kerangallou near Trégunc.

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Even simple pieces of the great stones were thought able to cast their power to protect the life of humans and their livestock. For instance, chipped pieces of megaliths were sometimes placed in the roofs and foundations of buildings as a protection against lightning strikes and even carried in people’s pockets for the same reason. When hung around the necks of children, the stone pieces were said to offer protection against ailments such as skin disorders and eye pain. Particles of stone play a part in many of the old folk remedies, especially when ground, mixed with liquid and drunk by the sick. Such stone dust often came from the tombs or the statues of particular saints but some treatments utilised that taken from ancient megaliths.

When worn as an amulet for nine consecutive days, the earth taken from under the tomb of Saint Gonéry in Plougrescant was thought to drive away any fever. Similarly, the earth taken from under the niche of the statue of Saint André that was set into the surviving walls of a dilapidated chapel outside Plouvenez-Lochrist, was placed in the sabots of those suffering from whooping cough in expectation of a cure. It is worth noting that the village once also possessed a fountain that attracted thousands of pilgrims to imbibe its miraculous water but this was filled-in by order of the ecclesiastical authorities during the 18^th century as a means of ending the pre-Christian rites still apparently performed there.

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Earth taken from Île Maudet, infused in a bowl of water, was once widely taken as a cure for intestinal worms; the small north coast island is named after the 6^th century saint who is said to have cleared it of snakes. By the mid-19th century, the island’s soil was also popularly used as a remedy against snake bites, eye diseases and skin complaints. The saint was also invoked to cure knee pain and sufferers would visit the chapel dedicated to him in Haut-Corlay to collect a handful of earth which they applied to the knee before washing it with water taken from the nearby fountain.

By the side of a track a little outside the village of Dirinon, in western Brittany, lies a two-metre-long block of quartzite known as La Pierre de Sainte-Nonne (Saint Non’s Stone). The rock’s face features ten modest cupules which were likely scored-out by human action rather than some form of erosion. Sadly, the original purpose of these small depressions are lost to us but local legend claimed that these were the impressions made by the hands and knees of the early-6^th century British saint Non whilst giving birth to Saint Divy; better known internationally as Saint David, patron saint of Wales.

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Saint Non’s Stone was traditionally visited by parents whose infant children possessed visible blue veins below their eyebrows; once regarded as a sign that the bearer was condemned to an early grave. The healing ritual seems to have involved the afflicted children being placed on the stone and manoeuvred so that their limbs made direct contact with the cupules. Just 50 metres from the stone, sits the saint’s fountain with its three large basins whose water was believed to enjoy healing properties, being particularly effective against diseases of the eye.

The 17 cupules found on the surface of a rock near the fountain devoted to the 6^th century Breton Saint Gwenael in Lanester, southern Brittany, are of unknown origin but the site was long reputed to mark the spot where the saint breathed his last. In years gone by, those suffering from eye infections and even partial blindness would visit this sacred site at the edge of the Blavet River in hope that their sight would be restored or preserved. The ritual involved taking water from the fountain, now inaccessible at high tide, and spreading it liberally over the stone; a piece of cloth was then dipped in the water that had settled in the cupules and pressed against the patients’ eyelids whilst they prayed for the saint’s healing grace.

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Above the shoreline near the north coast town of Plouescat lies a granite rock some 8 metres long resembling a fallen menhir. The uppermost surface of this stone, known as the Feunteun ar Vir (Fountain of Prevention), contains 25 depressions of varying sizes. In times past, people came to take home the rainwater collected from the largest of these hollows in the belief that it offered a miraculous cure for sickness in cattle and that, when drunk, it provided protection against all manner of diseases suffered by both humans and their livestock.

In eastern Brittany, the menhir known as La Pierre de Saint-Martin (Saint Martin’s Stone) now lies under the artificial Trémelin Lake near Iffendic. The stone contains indentations that were reputed to be impressions left, in the 4^th century, by the feet of Saint Martin of Tours. The menhir was a popular site of pilgrimage for those suffering from fever who left a coin or a wooden cross on the stone as a token of their invocation to the healing power of the saint. In addition to protecting crops against hail, the saint was invoked to heal those suffering from paralysis and those unable to speak.

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The efficacy of visits to the ancient stones, like those to certain fountains, most likely depended, to a large extent, on the day or time on which they were made. Sadly, such prescriptions have been mostly lost to us today but an account from the end of the 18^th century provides just such detail.  It tells that each year, before sunrise, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (15 August), all the women of the south coast town of Le Croisic left their houses and, while holding each other’s hands and crying out at the top of their voices, walked in procession to the menhir known as La Pierre Longue (Long Stone), around which they danced until noon. Complaints raised by the local priests in the 19^th century tell us that the ritual was still observed by young women who then also climbed the stone in the belief that they would become fertile.

It is perhaps too difficult for us now to fully appreciate the shadows long cast by these ancient stones upon the popular imagination. Clearly, they inspired the people living near them but they also attracted visitors from far afield; people who likely made their humble supplications with a sense of reverence, fear and hope!

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