_au clair
de la lune_.

_Crions, Courils, and Gorics_

Brittany has a species of dwarfs or gnomes peculiar to itself which in
various parts of the country are known as crions, courils, or
gorics. It will at once be seen how greatly the last word resembles
Korrigan, and as all of them perhaps proceed from a root meaning
'spirit' the nominal resemblance is not surprising. Like the nains,
these smaller beings inhabit abandoned Druidical monuments or dwell
beneath the foundations of ancient castles. Carnac is sometimes
alluded to in Breton as 'Ty C'harriquet,' 'the House of the Gorics,'
the country-folk in this district holding the belief that its
megalithic monuments were reared by these manikins, whom they
describe as between two and three feet high, but exceedingly
strong, just as the Scottish peasantry speak of the Picts of
folk-lore--'wee fouk but unco' strang.' Every night the gorics
dance in circles round the stones of Carnac, and should a mortal
interrupt their frolic he is forced to join in the dance, until,
breathless and exhausted, he falls prone to the earth amid peals of
mocking laughter. Like the nains, the gorics are the guardians of
hidden treasure, for the tale goes that beneath one of the menhirs of
Carnac lies a golden hoard, and that all the other stones have been
set up the better to conceal it, and so mystify those who would
discover its resting-place. A calculation, the key to which is to
be found in the Tower of London, will alone indicate the spot where
the treasure lies. And here it may be of interest to state that
the ancient national fortalice of England occurs frequently in Breton
and in Celtic romance.[37] Some of the immigrant Britons into
Armorica probably came from the settlement which was later to grow
into London, and may have carried tales of its ancient British
fortress into their new home.

The courils are peculiar to the ruins of Tresmalouen. Like the gorics,
they are fond of dancing, and they are quite as malignantly inclined
toward the unhappy stranger who may stumble into their ring. The
castle of Morlaix, too, is haunted by gorics not more than a foot
high, who dwell beneath it in holes in the ground. They possess
treasures as great as those of the gnomes of Norway or Germany, and
these they will sometimes bestow on lucky mortals, who are permitted,
however, to take but one handful. If a person should attempt to seize
more the whole of the money vanishes, and the offender's