Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Dream

This morning I had a dream. A woman walks into the room with a big, brown dog on a leash. She had blondish hair and was kind of shi shi and demanding. She asked me if she could use a phone book. I handed her a phone book that said BRITTANY. She said, "oh do you need it?" I said, "yes" and so she handed it back to me.

Later that day I spent some time researching Brittany, which I knew nothing about. I had heard the name and was vaguely familiar with the fact that it was somewhere in France but had no idea that it meant "Little Britain" and that it was a Celtic stronghold and former colony of exiles just accross the English Channel from England.

I did a search on one of my very favorite websites, answers.com, and came up with an amazing photo of the traditional regalia of these ancient people who speak one of the very oldest languages (a celtic dialect) in Europe.

Traditional costume in Brittany around 1900


Answers.com says:
"Brittany and the Breton people have retained many old customs and traditions. Breton, their Celtic language (akin to Welsh), is spoken in traditionalist Lower (i.e., western) Brittany outside the cities (see Breton literature). Brittany has remarkable stone calvaries, some built at the close of the 16th cent. to ward off the plague. Many megalithic monuments, formerly ascribed to the druids, dot the Breton landscape, notably at Carnac. These sights and the local traditions (old-fashioned peasant dress and high lace headgear, processions, and pilgrimages), which its inhabitants jealously maintain, have made Brittany an outstanding tourist attraction."

I read up on the Breton language and Breton music. But it was when I went housesitting and pulled a book off the book case a few weeks later that was really crazy. The book, Mysterious Britain, or something like that, said that the local legends in Brittany claimed that St. Anne, the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus was from Brittany!

No comments:

Blog Archive