Excerpt

Among the earliest collections of Breton folktales and folksongs in the nineteenth century were the two works know as Le Foyer Breton ('The Breton Hearth') published by Emile Souvestre in 1844, and Barzaz-Breiz ('Songs of Brittany'), edited and translated by Hersart de la Villemarqué in 1839. With a revised edition appearing in 1845. Emile Souvestre came from a middle-class Breton-speaking family of Morlaix, a city in northern Brittany (Finistère). This area remained rich in folklore in his day, a factor which led him to devote his life to the study of Breton traditions. Villemarqué on the other hand came from a minor aristocratic family in which the Breton language was often spoken. In 1837 at the age of twenty-two, he began his study of the traditional Breton songs, and five years later he also turned his attentions to medieval Welsh and Breton romances.