Stone
"calvaries" are a distinctive feature of Breton villages
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Everyone in France has heard of Asterix - and millions of people beyond
France are familiar with Asterix the Gaul, his band of merry
men, and their exploits against the Roman invader, as detailed in the
classic series of cartoon books that began in the late nineteen
fifties, became cult reading in the sixties, and
are still going strong.
And as the maps in Asterix books remind the
reader, it is
in the northwest tip of France that the famous resistance village is to
be found. Asterix and his tribe are Gauls, fighting a rearguard action
against the "Latin" invaders who had spread across a large
part of
western Europe, with the extension of the Roman empire.
As in Britain, where the ancient Celtic tribes were progressively
forced back into the western parts of the isles, the Celts of
France were also pushed towards the Atlantic by the westward thrust
of Romans
and Germanic tribes such as the Franks, who eventually gave their name
to the land that the Romans had called Gallia - or Gaul - and which we
know today as France.
It was only in the furthest northwestern extremity of France
that
the ancient Gauls, with their Celtic language and culture, managed to
survive; and they have done so to this day, leaving Brittany - the land
of the Bretons - as the largest outstanding stronghold of Celtic
heritage on the continent of Europe.
During the Dark Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire, the
Angles and Saxons invaded Britain, forcing the British who
previously inhabited the whole island, to retreat again to their
western strongholds; a considerable number of them decided to do so by
emigrating south across the sea, to join their cousins in the northwest
part of Gaul; and so it was that Armorica, as the
area had been know until then, became the land of the Britons, or as we
now know it, Brittany. The
Bretons are thus
the
cousins of the Britons, and to this day Brittany and the Celtic parts
of the UK share much in common, including similar languages.
If you
happen to speak Welsh, you may get on well with Britanny's Breton
speakers. Indeed, about 250,000 people in Brittany speak or understand
Breton - generally as a second language, and Breton culture and
language have undergone a massive revival in the last thirty years,
even if they have not acquired the force and status that the Welsh
language has regained in Wales.
Bretons are proud of their identity, and many think of
themselves as Bretons before calling themselves French.
However, in centralised France, devolution has not occurred to the same
extent as in Britain, and while the
Breton language is taught in many schools, there is no official Breton
parliament, just a regional council that meets in Rennes.
Like
their cousins in the islands to the north, the ancient Bretons left to
posterity an impressive number of prehistoric sites, most famous of
which are the megaliths of Carnac
(photo above) in southern
Brittany, France's equivalent of Stonehenge, with its 3000
blocks of granite. But throughout the region, there are dolmens and
standing stones whose origins are lost in the mists of time.
Brittany's
cultural identity - officially recognised by a charter signed in 1977 -
is expressed through folklore and customs which set it apart from the
rest of France. Scots visiting Brittany may be surprised to hear the
strains of bagpipes as they wander on holiday through a Breton market;
but bagpipes - called biniou
or cornemuse,
and harps are part of the Breton musical tradition, just as they are in
the other Celtic regions of Europe, from western Spain to northern
Scotland. Breton music went through a huge revival in the late 1960s
and 1970s, with the emergence on the music scene of Celtic rock, led by
Alan
Stivell, and
a group known as Tri Yann, who achieved international fame. Many others
have taken up the tradition, and today Celtic rock is a strong sector
in contemporary French music.
Throughout Brittany, small festivals and other events strongly stress
the region's distinct Celtic heritage and cultural identity. The most
importent event in
the annual calendar is however the annual InterCeltique
festival, which
takes place each year in the first half of August, in the port
of Lorient.
Started in 1971 on the tide of enthusiasm for the Celtic revival music,
the Lorient festival is now one of France's great summer music
festivals, and attracts
performers from all over the Celtic regions of Europe, as well as over
600,000 visitors. It includes a Grand parade, with marching bands and
musicians from Brittany and other Celtic regions too
Text
© Gitelink.com
Photos licenced under Creative Commons
Contact:
email brittany "at" gitelink.com
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