bably in the Gulf of Morbihan,
which resulted in the decisive defeat of the Veneti, the Romans
resorting to the stratagem of cutting down the enemy's rigging with
sickles bound upon long poles. The members of the Senate of the
conquered people were put to death as a punishment for their
defection, and thousands of the tribesmen went to swell the
slave-markets of Europe.

Between A.D. 450 and 500, when the Roman power and population were
dwindling, many vessels brought fugitives from Britain to Armorica.
These people, fleeing from the conquering barbarians, Saxons, Picts,
and Scots, sought as asylum a land where a kindred race had not yet
been disturbed by invasion. Says Thierry, in his _Norman Conquest_:
"With the consent of the ancient inhabitants, who acknowledged them as
brethren of the same origin, the new settlers distributed themselves
over the whole northern coast, as far as the little river Coesoron,
and southward as far as the territory of the city of the Veneti, now
called Vannes. In this extent of country they founded a sort of
separate state, comprising all the small places near the coast, but
not including within its limits the great towns of Vannes, Nantes, and
Rennes. The increase of the population of this western corner of the
country, and the great number of people of the Celtic race and
language thus assembled within a narrow space, preserved it from the
irruption of the Roman tongue, which, under forms more or less
corrupted, was gradually becoming prevalent in every other part of
Gaul. The name of _Brittany_ was attached to these coasts, and the
names of the various indigenous tribes disappeared; while the island
which had borne this name for so many ages now lost it, and, taking
the name of its conquerors, began to be called the land of the Saxons
and Angles, or, in one word, _England_."

_Samson_

One of these British immigrants was the holy Samson, who laboured to
convert pagan Brittany to Christianity. He hailed from Pembrokeshire,
and the legend relates that his parents, being childless, constructed
a menhir[2] of pure silver and gave it to the poor in the hope that a
son might be born to them. Their desire was fulfilled, and Samson, the
son in question, became a great missionary of the Church. Accompanied
by forty monks, he crossed the Channel and landed on the shores of the
Bay of Saint-Brieuc, a savage and deserted district.

As the keel of his galley grated on the beach the Saint behe