Note 10 — Robin Redbreast.

This form of taking possession is extremely ancient. In all the legislative systems of “the ancient world” transfer of landed property was effected by symbolical tradition; that is, by the handing over to the new owner of some visible and palpable portion or symbol of the land itself. At Rome, the sale of a field takes place standing on a turf cut from the field itself, which is handed over to the purchaser as a symbol of his new possession. In an old deed of 828 occurs the following: “I make over the underwritten goods and lands to the Church of St. Mary. And I make legal cession by straw and knife, glove and turf, and branch of tree; and so I put myself out, expel, and make myself absent.”—D. Calmet, Histoire de Lorraine, Preuves, p. 524. And as Brittany is the very chosen home of old customs, it has happened that even quite lately, at a farm near Léon, all these forms of taking possession were gone through, not as having any legal efficacy, but in compliance with ancient usage.