St. Levan's Path

Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Vol. 2, by William Bottrell, [1873], at sacred-texts.com

St. Levan's Path. Page 146.

We find a similar belief to that connected with the path St. Levan trod, in the Breton legend of St. Cornély, from which the above lines are quoted. "La Charrette" was the cart—drawn by oxen—in which the saint rode Then he and his people were pursued by an invading host of pagans. St. Cornély, being hard pressed, to prevent the Bretons being driven into the sea, turned about, cursed the pursuers, and changed them all—in rank and file as they stood—into the Menheers of Carnac.

The remarkable correspondence of beliefs, customs, names of places, &c., in the Armorican Cornouaile, with those of West Cornwall, would seem to show that the former was either colonised from hence or that many found an asylum there in some invasion of this district.

The story of Tom of Chyannor is well known there; a translation of the Armorican version was given in one of the early numbers of Chambers's Journal as a Breton legend.