Читать книгу Legends & Romances of Brittany - Льюис Спенс - Страница 30

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The Carnac district teems with prehistoric monuments, the most celebrated of which are those of Plouharnel, Concarneau, Concurrus, Locmariaquer, Kermario, Kerlescant, Erdeven, and Sainte-Barbe. All these places are situated within a few miles of one another, and a good centre from which excursions can be made to each is the little town of Auray, with its quaint medieval market-house and shrine of St. Roch. Archæologists, both Breton and foreign, appear to be agreed that the groups of stones at Ménéac, Kermario, and Kerlescant are portions of one original and continuous series of alignments which extended for nearly two miles in one direction from south-west to north-east. The monolithic avenue commences quite near the village of Ménéac, stretching away in eleven rows, and here the large stones are situated, these at first rising to a height of from 10 to 13 feet, and becoming gradually smaller, until they attain only 3 or 4 feet. In all there are 116 menhirs at Ménéac. For more than three hundred yards there is a gap in the series, which passed, we come to the Kermario avenue, which consists of ten rows of monoliths of much the same size as those of Ménéac, and 1120 in number.

Passing on to Kerlescant, with its thirteen rows of menhirs made up of 570 individual stones, we come to the end of the avenue and gaze backward upon the plain covered with these indestructible symbols of a forgotten past.

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Carnac! There is something vast, Egyptian, in the name! There is, indeed, a Karnak in Egypt, celebrated for its Avenue of Sphinxes and its pillared temple raised to the goddess Mut by King Amenophis III. Here, in the Breton Carnac, are no evidences of architectural skill. These sombre stones, unworked, rude as they came from cliff or seashore, are not embellished by man’s handiwork like the rich temples of the Nile. But there is about this stone-littered moor a mystery, an atmosphere no less intense than that surrounding the most solemn ruins of antiquity. Deeper even than the depths of Egypt must we sound if we are to discover the secret of Carnac. What mean these stones? What means faith? What signifies belief? What is the answer to the Riddle of Man? In the words of Cayot Délandre, a Breton poet:

Tout cela eut un sens, et traduisit

Une pensée; mais clé de ce mystère,

Où est elle? et qui pourrait dire aujourd’hui

Si jamais elle se retrouvera?[9]