"And in what does the pilgrimage consist?"
"You will proceed to the druid stones of Karnak, near Auray."
"Indeed, I have heard it said, father, that that assemblage of gigantic granite blocks, found down to to-day, ranked in a mysterious fashion, dates back to the remotest antiquity."
"Already two thousand years and more ago, my boy, it was not known at what epoch--an epoch that is lost in the night of the past--the stones of Karnak were raised and put in place."
"Oh! father, one is seized as with a vertigo in thinking of the age that those monumental stones must have."
"Only God knows it, my friends! If we are to judge of their future by their past, myriads of generations will yet succeed one another at the feet of those gigantic monuments, which seem to defy the tooth of time, and upon which the eyes of our fathers have so often rested from century to century in pious meditation."
"And why did they make the pilgrimage, father?"
"Because the cradle of our family, the fields and the homesteads of the first of our ancestors of whom these manuscripts make mention, were situated near the stones of Karnak. As you will see, that ancestor was named _Joel, en Brenn an Lignez an Karnak_, which, as you know, means _Joel, the chief of the tribe of Karnak_. He was the chief or patriarch, chosen by his tribe, or by his clan, as the Scotch call it."[12]
"Accordingly," interjected George Duchene, "your name, father, the name of _Brenn_, means chief?"