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Post by redraven on Jul 1, 2009 18:25:48 GMT -1
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Post by arth_frown on Jul 1, 2009 19:11:43 GMT -1
hooo! very nice Don't tell the hippies that it's fenced off and there is a road next to it they will be over there protesting. Then again at least they won't be here.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 17, 2009 18:32:37 GMT -1
niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice  You had a nice day! Arth_frown, there's not a road nor a fence near ALL alignments, only near the most famous, indeed to protect them from hippies and other tourists. Most are open outside the season. redraven, have you seen the tumulus of Carnac, too? With the small chapel on it? And the well in teh forest? How did you like the place over all? Special impressions? Tell your stories please!!!! |
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Post by redraven on Jul 19, 2009 7:20:50 GMT -1
redraven, have you seen the tumulus of Carnac, too? With the small chapel on it? No, because it is now only open for guided tours at certain times and I only had 8 days there, there's only so much you can do.  And the well in teh forest? How did you like the place over all? Special impressions? Tell your stories please!!!! Breizh is my favourite place in France, and I felt more connected there than anywhere else I have visited, and I have been from Perpignian to Dunkerque. It was interesting that you could be travelling along a road and right there would be a dolmen, such as on the road entering Ploumal from Carnac. Wandering through the wooded areas, if one had the time, would be a wonderous thing to do, with the possibility of coming across many more stones, dolmens and who knows what! One thing I did notice was, having previously visited the northern coastline of Briezh, the "atmosphere" in the south was different from the north, I found the north to be more "wild"?, not touched so much by the hand of man, although this was just my own personal gnosis. RR |
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Post by Francis on Jul 19, 2009 9:23:40 GMT -1
Breizh is my favourite place in France, and I felt more connected there than anywhere else I have visited, Interesting that you felt this connection so quickly - do you have any thoughts as to why this might be? I found the north to be more "wild"?, not touched so much by the hand of man, although this was just my own personal gnosis. Did you have a sense of preferring the more "wild" areas? Or was it just that you noted the difference? |
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Post by redraven on Jul 19, 2009 9:53:27 GMT -1
Interesting that you felt this connection so quickly - do you have any thoughts as to why this might be? Probably because of the extent of the "visible" archaeology, as I mentioned. To be able to come across the dolmens, stones and tumulus. literally by the roadside brings the history right to you. If you can find early photo's of the area, you can see that the alignements had livestock roaming through them and the plantlife was reduced to closely cropped grasses, in fact, it looked a little like a moor from the peak district, somewhat stark. Since they have fallen under protection laws, the plantlife has been allowed to proliferate, which for me, actually helped the connection process. Did you have a sense of preferring the more "wild" areas? Or was it just that you noted the difference? The pink granite coast of the north of Briezh is very reminiscent of Kernow, especially as it is affected by the same weather patterns from the gulf stream whereas the sheltered nature of the south creates a different feel. TBH, I like both areas, though there does seem to be some, what I can only crudely refer to, as atmospheric differences, but they were more closely attuned to my own perceptions than any other area of France, a lot of which has been completely alien to me. RR |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2009 14:32:43 GMT -1
In Breizh it is very easy to feel the differences between the old 'broiou', the small countries with their own cultural identity (and their own prejudices against their neighbours  ) :  Every place has it's own feeling. The bro you just visited, bro an Alre (more or less the upper half of what here is called 'Gorre bro-Gwened'), is the place where I feel home with all the emotional and spiritual implications this has, but when I am for example in the mountains, the meneziou Arree (in Kerne, bro C'hlazig and surroundings) it is different. It is wild and untouched by human beings, as you say. The traditional culture differs very much, too. and...it is difficult to explain. I am still in a welcoming land there, but it's not 'home'. I am a welcome stranger. The spirit of the land differs. Bro an Alre is very much connected with the sea, with 'oldness', too; it is a very 'rooted' area, with a very own identity, it is an area where traditional culture still stands very strong, a stronghold of traditional music and dance, of storytelling...and it is a place where nature comes very close to the humans: it has its forests, heather fields and sea, cliffs and roks and small bays where it is great to swim at summertime and to walk in winter.... it is a rich area, too, one of the richest of brittany (also because of tourism). It is the historical area of the Veneti tribe, which made it already a rich area in the iron age. Maybe another difference in feeling to me is that I KNOW the Auray region, I know the land, the culture, the topography, the local legends, the local dialect and more...I know much less of say, bro C'hlazig. This makes it feel different. So maybe I am not the right person to point out differences, but it is very interesting to read what Redraven has to say  Interesting may be for you that the Rose Granit coast has more links with Cornwall; the region was colonised in the Dark Ages by Cornish tribes, I heard at school...the dialect of the region is (i heard) also the breton dialect that comes the closest to Cornish. The southern dialect, on the other hand, has much more affinity with welsh, although I don;t know wether it was colonised by the welsh. Some theories say that bro-gwened was hardly colonised by the British at all, which would explain its linguistic difference...I don't know, have no time now to look things up. Please correct me if I'm talking nonsense. |
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Post by megli on Jul 19, 2009 21:26:40 GMT -1
Not at all! Fascinating stuff. It's not the case, however, that Bro-Gwened was not colonised by Britons. Breton is simply an offshoot of British, brought by emigrating Britons in the Dark Ages.
It is true that some scholars a few decades back (Falc'hun chiefly) thought that Breton was in fact the descendant, not of the British language of immigrating Britons, but of speakers of the closely-related Gaulish language who had clung on into the early medieval period in the peninsula. Falc'hun did not deny that Breton had British features, but he envisaged such features spreading down from the north from Treguier and largely avoiding the Vannetais (Bro-Gwened) dialect. Vannetais Breton is weird, thought Falc'hun, because it represents a 'pure' development of Gaulish, whereas the other dialect groups--which are closer to each other--are descended from ancestral Gaulish admixed with late British from the incomers from southern Britain.
Nifty idea--unfortunately it's bullshit. It's clear that in every significant respect Breton is a Brittonic language that has been transplanted, and is not a descendant of Gaulish. It is after all impossible to point to any distinguishing feature of the separate Breton dialects that dates back earlier than the 10th-11th centuries: most seem to have arisen much later.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 9:04:03 GMT -1
Yeah that's the theory that was swimming somewhere in the back of my head! Although I thought that this particular theory did not say that Bro Gwened was NOT colonialised, but that it was less densely colonialised, and so kept a strong romano-gaulish substrate. I may be very wrong, I heard this theory in class and I have the bad habit of not taking notes....
I wonder how much of the cultural differences between the broiou can be tracked back to the different Gaulish tribes in Breizh, and how much to the different Briton tribes invading, and how much to later times....Much has be done by the creation of the episcopal provinces, but of course these province borders were drawn more or less to the model of preexisting borders, at least that is what one would expect. And where they were not, this would be felt very strongly by the people: I must think of the (very few) gwenedek communities in the province of Kerne, that demanded (and got) their own catechism as they felt their language was not the same as that of Kemper...
I am rambling. Hope I will not destroy your thread, redraven!
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Post by Tegernacus on Jul 20, 2009 10:30:27 GMT -1
it's all good! Crapapedia states: "In the Early Middle Ages, Brittany was divided into three kingdoms — Domnonia, Cornouaille (Kernev), and Bro Waroc'h (Broërec) — which eventually were incorporated into the Duchy of Brittany. The first two kingdoms derive their names from the homelands of the migrating tribes in Britain (Devon and Cornwall). Bro Waroc'h ("land of Waroch") derives from the name of one of the first known Breton rulers, who dominated the region of Vannes (Gwened). The rulers of Domnonia, such as Conomor sought to expand their territory, claiming overlordship over all Bretons, though there was constant tension between local lords." www.historyfiles.co.uk/FeaturesBritain/ArmoricaMap.htm |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2009 13:22:13 GMT -1
yeah, that's right....but I do not understand the 'it's all good'...
Was Rennes in the Gwened area once, as you card says? I have pain to believe it! when was this? The site says more things I find a bit strange, but after all I'm no expert.
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Post by redraven on Jul 20, 2009 14:26:22 GMT -1
yeah, that's right....but I do not understand the 'it's all good'... I think Teg is referring to the fact that you can't go "off" subject here, we like abstract thinking! Feel free to bring up any related subject, especially from personal experience, you are not destroying any thread! BTW, I brought a copy of the 1993 "Celtic Legends of Brittany" (English version, obviously) by O.-L. Aubert, interesting stuff, even with it's Christian slant. RR |
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Post by mooncrone on Jan 18, 2016 14:12:51 GMT -1
such beautiful pictures of such a wonderful place - thank you for sharing
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