Note 16 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

Breton III.16 is peculiar in several ways. A young man, who had been unjustly cast off by his parents, put himself under the protection of St. Corentin and the Virgin. To an old woman he gave all his stock of money that she might bury her husband and have masses said for his soul. The saint and the Virgin then led the hero to a nobleman, whose daughter he married. On a hunt he was cast into the sea by an envious uncle of his wife, at a time when she was pregnant; but he was brought to an island by some mysterious power and nourished there for five years by St. Corentin. Finally an old man appeared and took him home after he had promised half of his possessions to the rescuer. When a year had passed, the old man came back and demanded half of the child; but just as the mysterious stranger was about to divide the child St. Corentin and the Virgin appeared and explained their identity, together with that of the old man, who was the saint himself. They told the hero, furthermore, that God was well pleased with him, and would take his son and himself to Paradise. Father and son fell dead immediately, while the wife went into a convent.