The five great pardons of Brittany are held each year as follows:
"The Pardon of the Poor," at St. Yves; "The Pardon of the Singers," at Rumengol; "The Pardon of the Fire," at St. Jean du Doigt; "The Pardon of the Mountain," at Troménie de St. Ronan; "The Pardon of the Sea," at Ste. Anne de la Palude.
It is a moot question as to just how much of romance is in the make-up of the Breton character. Emotional the people are, but the emotion that leads them into the enthusiasm which they exhibit at their great religious festivals and pardons is more superstitious than romantic.
The druidism, or paganism, or whatever the religion (_sic_) of the ancient peoples of the Armorican peninsula may have been, bears not the least traditional resemblance to the fervour of the devotees of the pardons of to-day, but one can readily believe that the same spirit, if with a different motive, does exist even now.
The blessing of the boats, the birds, the cows, and what not, which takes place periodically at different points along the Breton coast,--for it is mostly along the coast that these observances take place,--smacks not a little of something that is of more psychological purport than mere religious devotion.
From whatever tradition these great religious observances have descended, there is no question of the sincerity of the participants, though there is a wide difference between the "sacred" and "profane" elements which meet on these occasions.
Brittany, perhaps as much as any other of the ancient provinces of France, has preserved its local customs and traditions, unblushingly indifferent to the changing conditions round about them. Of course there is no reason why religion and its observances should change with the march of time, but they do, nevertheless, in France as much as in any other land. Only in Brittany, apparently, do the congregations of men and women--for elsewhere the congregations are mostly women--of great churches approach to anything like the numbers that the churches were built to contain.
Throughout this land of calvaries, too, there will be found at all times of the day, and often at night, a tiny congregation of one, two, or perhaps a half a dozen, peasant or fisher folk kneeling before one of these wayside crosses, and invoking their God after the manner they have been taught, in a truly devout and sincere fashion, which is more than can be said of some parts, where the peasant, when on a visit to town on the market-day, rushes in and out of a church with hardly time enough devoted to the whole process even to have used the holy water.