Pagan Country
The coastal area around the village of Kerlouan in the northern part of the département of Finistère in Brittany, is often referred to as “Pagan Country”. Recently, clever marketers tried to rebrand it “Coast of Legends”, but that didn’t really stick.
The truth is that, for centuries, locals had a bad reputation ranging from extensive contrabanding with England to lighting big lanterns during dark nights to lure passing ships onto coastal rocks and pillaging them the next morning... I am told they tell the same stories in some parts of Cornwall and Devon on the other side of the Manche, and there must be some truth to it.
More recently, and for a good two decades from 1986, one or several persons unknown undertook a series of acts of malevolence, such as cutting mooring lines, drilling holes in hulls, towing boats out to sea in the night and wrecking them on nearby rocks, etc. The perpetrator of those acts was dubbed le Renard des Grèves (“The Fox of the Shores”), acted in general during full moon nights, when the amplitude of the tide is bigger, and was never caught.
This is the lovely house built as a shelter for customs officers watching over the beaches in the old days. Even though, now with Brexit and all... ;o))
Pagan Country
The coastal area around the village of Kerlouan in the northern part of the département of Finistère in Brittany, is often referred to as “Pagan Country”. Recently, clever marketers tried to rebrand it “Coast of Legends”, but that didn’t really stick.
The truth is that, for centuries, locals had a bad reputation ranging from extensive contrabanding with England to lighting big lanterns during dark nights to lure passing ships onto coastal rocks and pillaging them the next morning... I am told they tell the same stories in some parts of Cornwall and Devon on the other side of the Manche, and there must be some truth to it.
More recently, and for a good two decades from 1986, one or several persons unknown undertook a series of acts of malevolence, such as cutting mooring lines, drilling holes in hulls, towing boats out to sea in the night and wrecking them on nearby rocks, etc. The perpetrator of those acts was dubbed le Renard des Grèves (“The Fox of the Shores”), acted in general during full moon nights, when the amplitude of the tide is bigger, and was never caught.
This is the lovely house built as a shelter for customs officers watching over the beaches in the old days. Even though, now with Brexit and all... ;o))