Dahut and the city of Is

Here is the story of Princess Dahut, King Grallon and the city of Is

Princess Dahut, King Grallon and the city of Is

In ancient times there was a powerful king in Cornwall called Grallon. He was as much a friend of the good as any son of Adam and who welcomed to his court all famous people, whether they were nobles or commoners. Unfortunately, his daughter was a princess of disorderly conduct who, to escape his surveillance, had gone to live in Keris, a few leagues from Quimper.

One day when King Grallon was hunting with his retinue in a forest at the foot of Ménéhom, they got lost and all arrived at the hermitage of the solitary Corentin. Grallon had heard of this holy man, and he was delighted to have been led to his home; but his servants, who were dying of hunger, gazed sadly at the poor cabin of the saint, saying to each other that we should have supper of prayers.

Corentin, enlightened by God, divined their thoughts. He asked the king if he would not accept a snack, and, as Grallon replied that he had not eaten since the rooster crowed, the saint called the butler and the cook to prepare a good meal after a si long abstinence.

He led them both to the fountain placed near his hermitage, filled the gold pitcher that the first carried with water, cut off a piece of the little fish that was swimming in the spring to give it to the second, and recommended to both to cover the king and his retinue. But the butler and the cook laughed, and asked him if they took the courtiers for beggars, to dare to offer them his fish bones and his frog wine. Corentin told them not to worry about anything, and that God would provide for everything.

They decided, therefore, to do as he had ordered, and, to their surprise, the saint's predictions came true; for, on the one hand, the water which had been drawn from the golden jug turned into a wine as sweet as honey and as hot as fire, while, on the other, the small piece of fish multiplied in such a way as to satisfy twice as many guests as the king had after him.

Grallon was warned of this miracle by his two servants, who showed him as an added marvel, the little fish of which Corentin had cut a part, swimming in the fountain, as healthy and whole as if the saint's knife had never touched him. . At this sight, the King of Cornwall was seized with admiration, and he said to the hermit:

- Man of God! this is not your place; because your master and mine have forbidden to keep the light under wraps. You are going to leave this hermitage to come to Quimper where I appoint you bishop; my palace will be your home, and the whole city will be yours. As for your disciples, I will build a monastery for them at Landevenec, and you yourself will name the abbot.

The king kept his promise, gave up his capital to the new bishop and went to live in the city of Is.

This stood at the very place where you can see the bay of Douarnenez today. She was so tall and beautiful, that to praise the capital of gallows, the men of the old days found nothing better than to call her Par-is, that is to say the equal of Is. It was built lower than the sea and defended by dikes, the doors of which were opened at certain times to bring in and out the waves.

Princess Dahut, daughter of Grallon, always wore the silver keys of these doors hanging from her neck, so that the people called her Princess Alc'huèz, or more briefly Ahèz. As she was a great magician, she had embellished the city with works that one cannot ask for from the hands of men. All the korrigans of Cornouaille and Vannes had come, on his order, to build the dikes and forge the gates which were of iron; they had covered the palace with a metal similar to gold (for the korrigans are skilful counterfeiters) and surrounded the gardens with balustrades which shone like polished steel

. It was they who looked after the stables of Dahut, paved with black, red or white marble, depending on the color of the horses, and who maintained the port where the sea dragons were fed; for Dahut had subdued the monsters of the sea by his art and had given one to each inhabitant of Keris, who used it as a courier to seek rare goods beyond the waves or to reach ships. enemies. Also all these bourgeois were so opulent that they measured the grain with silver hanaps.

But wealth had made them vicious and harsh: beggars were driven out of the city like wild beasts; they wanted to have everywhere only gay people, in good health and dressed in cloth or silk. Christ himself, if he had come in a cloth garment, would have been rejected. The only church there was in the city was so abandoned that the beadle had lost the key; nettles grew on the threshold, and swallows nested against the joints of the front door. The inhabitants spent the days and the nights in the inns, the dance halls, the spectacles, only occupied with losing their soul.

Dahut led by example. It was, day and night, a party in his palace. We saw arriving, from the most distant countries, gentlemen and even princes attracted by the fame of this court. Grallon received them with friendship, and Dahut even better, because, if they were young people of good appearance, she gave them a magical mask with which they could, from the evening, join her secretly in a tower built on the edge of the locks. .

They stayed there with her until the hour when the sea swallows began to pass in front of the windows of the tower; then the princess would say goodbye to them very quickly, and, so that they could go out without being seen, as they had arrived, she would put the enchanted mask back on them, but this time it would tighten up by itself and strangle them! ...

A black man then took the dead body, placed it across on his horse, like a sack of grind, and was going to throw it at the bottom of a precipice, between Huelgoat and Poullaouen. This is indeed the truth, because even today, during the dark nights, one hears at the bottom of the ravine, the complaints of their souls. May Christians think of them in their prayers!

Corentin, informed of everything that was happening at Keris, had several times warned Grallon that God's patience was at an end; but the king had lost his power and lived alone in one of the wings of the palace, abandoned by everyone, like a grandfather who gave his inheritance to his children; so Dahut ignored the threats of the saint.

Now, one evening when there was a party at her house, they came to announce to her a powerful prince, who had come from the ends of the earth to see her. He was a tall man, all dressed in red and so bearded, that one could barely see his two eyes, which shone like stars… He addressed a rhyming compliment to the princess so well turned, that no bazvalen de Cornouaille could not have invented such; then he began to speak with such wit that everyone was amazed.

But what struck Dahut's friends above all was to see how the foreigner was more skillful than they were in evil. He knew not only all that human malice has invented since creation, in all the lands inhabited by speaking beings, but all that it will invent until the moment when the dead rise from their graves to be judged! Ahez and the people of his court recognized that they had found their master, and all resolved to give lessons from the bearded prince.

To begin with, the latter offered them a new movement which was none other than the shovel danced in hell by the seven deadly sins. For that, he brought in a bell ringer whom he had brought with him. It was a little dwarf dressed in a goat's skin, and who carried under his arm a biniou whose blowtorch served as a penbaz.

No sooner had he started ringing, than Dahut and his people were seized with a kind of frenzy and began to turn like whirlpools of the sea. locks and to escape the party.

Meanwhile, Grallon was alone in his secluded palace; he was standing in a large dark room, and he was seated on the hearth, near an extinguished fire. He felt sadness fall into his heart, when suddenly the door opened on both sides, and Saint Corentin appeared on the threshold with a ring of fire around his forehead, bishop's crook in hand and walking in. a cloud of perfume.

"Arise, great king," he said to Grallon; take what is precious to you here and flee, for God has delivered this accursed city to the devil.

Grallon, frightened, immediately got up, called some old servants, and, having taken his treasure, he mounted his black horse and set off after the saint who slipped through the air like a feather.

As they passed the dike, he heard a loud roar of the waves and saw the bearded stranger, who had resumed his demon form, busy opening all the locks with the silver keys taken from Dahut. The sea was already cascading down over the city, and the waves could be seen raising their white heads above the rooftops, as if they were rising to the assault. The dragons, chained in the harbor, howled with terror; for animals also feel death coming.

Grallon wanted to give a cry of warning; but Corentin repeated to him to flee, and he rushed off at a gallop towards the shore. His horse thus crossed the streets, the squares, the crossroads, pursued by the waves and always with his hind feet in the wave. He was passing in front of Dahut's palace, when Dahut appeared on the steps, her hair as thin as a widow, and rushed after her father. The horse suddenly stopped, gave way, and the water rose to the king's knee.

- To me, Saint Corentin! he cried in terror.

- Shake off the sin you carry behind you, replied the saint, and, by the help of God, you will be saved.

But Grallon, who despite everything was a father, did not know what to resolve. Then Corentin touched with his bishop's crook the shoulder of the princess who slipped into the sea and disappeared at the bottom of the abyss, called from the abyss of Ahez.

The horse, thus freed from its burden, rushed forward and reached the rock of Garrec where you can still see the mark of one of its shoes. The king first fell on his knees to thank Heaven, then turned to Keris, in order to judge the danger from which he had miraculously escaped; but he searched in vain for the ancient queen of the seas.

Where there were, a few. Moments previously, a port, palaces, so much wealth and thousands of men, we could only see a deep bay which reflected the stars; while on the horizon, standing on the last debris of the submerged dikes, the red man pointed to the silver keys with a gesture of triumph.

Several oak forests have had time to be born and die since the day when this example happened; but the fathers told it to children from age to age until our time. Before the great revolution, the clergy of the riverside parishes embarked every year in fishing boats and went to say mass in the drowned city.

Since then, this custom has been lost with many others; but, when the sea is calm, one can still see at the end of the bay the remains of the great city, and the surrounding dunes are full of ruins which prove its wealth.