Hello, I’m Lize Kergonan and today I’m talking to you about Saint Pol de Léon.
In the previous video, we left Pol and his companions as they arrived on the Island of Batz, opposite Roscoff, to meet Count Withur who ruled the Pays du Léon.
Arriving on the island, a paralytic was conveniently there and Pol hastened to restore his mobility. Obviously, this did not go unnoticed and facilitated his relations with the count. He received them kindly and while they were chatting, some fishermen arrived at the Palace with a salmon of astonishing size which, moreover, had a bell in its mouth. Pol recognized it immediately, it was the one that King Marc had refused him. He burst out laughing at this miracle and when Count Withur learned the cause, he gave him the bell. It is the same one that is located in the cathedral of Saint-Pol-de-Léon.
Yes, it’s the one, you unbelieving disbelievers ! We call it “Hir-glas”, “the long blue one”! Finally, “blue” is a translation that I found everywhere, but first of all it is not blue at all, and then Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie in his History of Brittany calls it “la longue-fauve ». I’ll put the references in the info if you want to get the book on Gallica. It is true that being made of copper, it is more tawny than blue. In any case, the translation of the Welsh “glaz” is “blue” or “green” or “gray”… or “young” Well, we are not going to quibble with the Welsh who have the right to name the colors of the bells as they want, not to mention that perhaps Pol’s bell was actually blue and that the one in the cathedral has nothing to do with the original.
It’s not the truth or the color that matters , it’s the miracles. And she did that ! A super bell which, when imposed on the heads of the sick, cured them of deafness and headaches ! Revered by the faithful for centuries ! Until a bishop opposed it in 1630 ! “Pagan practices,” he said ! Nevertheless, after a passage under the bell, the deaf heard and the headaches disappeared. We were treating evil with evil, perhaps, but it was effective. It is even said that one day she woke up a dead man ! The bishop, jealous of these miracles which he described as “pagan practices” just because he was not capable of doing the same, only authorized “osculation”. Not medical auscultation, “os-cu-LA-tion”, etymologically the act of kissing ! Kiss the bell ! Eventually, everything was banned by the Church of Rome ; people were barely allowed to ring the bell above the heads of the faithful. Hands off ! Is it a surprise for you, that the world is going badly ! Let’s return to meeting Count Withur.
He at least did not doubt the miracles. When he saw what God would do if Pol prayed to him, he asked him if he could rid him of a wicked dragon, sixty feet long, covered in scales, which was devouring men, women and animals from the surrounding villages. Pol had no reason to refuse him this little favor. So he spent the night in prayer and the next morning he set out with his companions, armed with his staff. e also wore a stole, a sort of scarf, a precious gift from his dear sister which never left him. The count and the people followed them and showed them the place. He approached the entrance of the cave and ordered the monster to come out of its lair. Which he did. The beast rolled its eyes, flapped its scales, hissed like a raging storm wind hoping to impress the men of God. But Pol looked him in the face, and eye to eye, taking advantage of his disbelief, threw his stole around his neck, tied a knot and led him like a dog on a leash. When he stopped, he gave him a good blow with the stick and they both set off again. Arriving at the northern end of the island, Pol removed the stole and ordered the dragon to rush into the sea. Which he did ! If you go to the island of Batz, go to the place called “Toull-ar-Sarpant”, that is to say, “the Serpent’s hole”, and listen how the sea makes a strange hiss there. .
To thank him, Count Withur gave him his palace and the entire island of Batz. Pol abandoned the palace and hastened to build a hermitage. For greater convenience, he brought out a spring of fresh water by placing his stock in the ground. Before leaving to settle on the continent, Withur also gave him a book of the Gospels that he had copied with his own hand.
After all these adventures, the inhabitants of the Pays du Léon wanted to make him bishop. But this office did not attract him any more than in Cornwall when King Mark had proposed it to him. Then the count had an idea : he wrote a letter for King Childebert, a Frank, son of Clovis, and asked Pol to take it to Paris. He did not tell him what it contained. Arriving in the palace, the king, the missive barely read, sticks an ivory crozier in his hands and property titles with all their income… Pol was surprised by this welcome and discovered that Withur was begging Childebert, in the name of all his people, to immediately consecrate him bishop of Léon ! By what title did the king of the Franks crown bishops, that’s politics, children. Let us say that temporal power had arranged with Roman spiritual power and that Clovis had perhaps not converted to Christianity without prior negotiation.
Although Pol begged Childebert on his knees, with tears in his eyes, not to do it, he was indeed a bishop when he returned to Brittany. Around 530.
Then, he was installed on the episcopal seat, he had hermitages and monasteries built… if you look at the map of Brittany, all the names in “Paul”, it’s him. He still took the time to exterminate a poor dragon who was terrorizing the population of Faou, then as age came and an angel had warned him of his imminent death, he prepared for a great eternal vacation. He returned to the island of Batz and devoted himself entirely to prayer.
When the day came, everyone was crying ! So many years of telling them about the Creator and they still didn’t understand that dying was a source of joy. Pol felt a sense of failure but after all, the monks and parishioners would see all this with his successor. He was 102 years old, it was in 594. Or, it was in 572 according to other historians. Or “around the end of the 500s”, we don’t know. In any case, it was March 12 ! We are sure of that ! ☺ How can we be sure ? Because it’s Saint Pol de Léon’s day, and that’s it.
They gave him a beautiful burial mass in the church of the Batz monastery and he thought he was done. But the new bishop Léonnois presented himself and ordered his coffin to be carried on a boat to bring him back and bury him on the continent.
This caused a lot of noise and a lot of bickering. The monks and inhabitants of Batz opposed this and threatened the mainlanders with their sticks, saying that he had died among them and that he would stay there ! The others replied that he had been their bishop and that it was normal that he should be buried in his cathedral. The new bishop then had an original idea : he had two covered wagons brought, each pulled by a pair of oxen, arranged them abutment, one facing the monastery of Batz, the other towards the cathedral on the continent. The coffin was placed astride the two carts and it was decreed that the holy body would decide for itself where it wanted to rest. This masquerade began to seriously annoy our saint, although he was dead, he disappeared with his coffin to the great astonishment of the assembly. The oxen did not worry and one of the carts headed towards the boat, the other towards the monastery. Arriving at their destination, they each contained a coffin. The monks of Batz opened theirs, it was empty. The bishop and the people of Léon opened theirs and found the body. Very happy, amidst cries of joy, they gave him another mass for the dead, the most euphoric one people have ever known, and they placed him in a tomb in the middle of the choir of the cathedral. Well, now the relics…
The problem was that Pol continued to perform miracles during his time under the slab and that attracted crowds. Then later Saint Goulven brought the bones out of the hole and placed them in a shrine among the other relics and there, the Bretons and foreigners could worship religiously before the remains of the saint.
Until the Vikings decided to ravage Armorican Brittany, setting fire wherever they went. The bishop of the moment, to save the relics, transported them to the abbey of Fleury-sur-Loire. There, they were placed in a very beautiful shrine, covered with silver. But in 1562, the Calvinists who abominated the cult of the saints and wanted to seize precious metals to transform them into currency, invaded this monastery, emptied the shrines and took them away. To get rid of the contents, they threw the relics into the fire.
Don’t worry, there’s still some left. Before the destruction of the Fleury relics, the skull, arm bones and a phalanx had fortunately been preserved elsewhere. Today, everything is in the cathedral of Saint-Pol-de-Léon, with the precious bell, “Hir-glaz”. As for the stole, it is on the island of Batz.
This is the story of Pol de Léon. What is not told in the books is that one day Saint Anne, Santez Anna, came to see Saint Pol. Here’s what they said to each other :
Pol : Ah, hey, there’s Mamm-gozh !
Anna : Hello, Paolig !
Pol : What brings you Anna ?
Anna : I’m starting my tour of Brittany.
Pol : A Tro Breiz ? Have you started hiking ?
Anna : Not at all. No, I am visiting the Breton founding saints. And you are the first.
Pol : So, you still have a way to go.
Anna : Well, yes. I wanted to see how this pilgrimage goes. If it’s worth doing it while you’re alive…
Pol : Or once you’re dead…
Anna : And walk the length of your coffin per year… Well, keeps you busy when you have eternity ahead of you.
Pol : Do you believe in these superstitions ?
Anna : Well, no, but I like old stories.
Pol : Our Lord Jesus Christ never spoke of a Tro Breiz !
Anna : Neither your bell nor your relics, so we can invent.
Pol : Maybe you’re right.
Anna : Well, my Pol, it’s not that I’m bored, but I have to get back on the road to visit Tugdual in Tréguier. Take care and my regards to your parishioners. Kenavo !
Pol : Kenavo, my dear.
The story is over.
So, in the evening, to put the little children to sleep, tell them how Pol walked the dragon on a leash with his stole and made it move forward with great blows of his sticks, they will know how to defend themselves against the monsters of their nightmares.
And, on occasion, come see Pol in his cathedral. Improvise a little prayer, it will really please him. And remember : when you talk to him kindly, he knows how to turn back the tide ! In these times, it can be useful ! See you, Kenavo, Kisses !
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