These stories had from the first a very great influence upon my imagination.  The chapels which I have spoken of are always solitary, and stand by themselves amid the desolate moors or barren rocks.  The wind whistling amid the heather and the stunted vegetation thrilled me with terror, and I often used to take to my heels, thinking that the spirits of the past were pursuing me.  At other times I would look through the half ruined door of the chapel at the stained glass or the statuettes of painted wood which stood on the altar.  These plunged me in endless reveries.  The strange and terrible physiognomy of these saints, more Druid than Christian, savage and vindictive, pursued me like a nightmare.  Saints though they were, they were none the less subject to very strange weaknesses.  Gregory, of Tours, has told us the story of a certain Winnoch, who passed through Tours on his way to Jerusalem, his only covering being some sheep skins with their wool taken off.  He seemed so pious that they kept him there and made a priest of him.  He made wild herbs his sole food, and raised the wine flagon to his lips in such a way that it seemed as if he scarcely moistened his lips.  But as the liberality of the devout provided him with large quantities of it he got into the habit of drinking, and was several times observed to be overcome by his potations.  The devil gained such a hold over him that, armed with knives, sticks, stones, and whatever else he could get hold of, he ran after the people in the streets.  It was found necessary to chain him up in his cell.  None the less was he a saint.  St. Cadoc, St. Iltud, St. Conery, St. Renan (or Ronan), appeared to me as giants.  In after years, when I had come to know India, I saw that my saints were true Richis, and that through them I had became familiarised with the most primitive features of our Aryan world, with the idea of solitary masters of nature, asserting their power over it by asceticism and the force of the will.

The last of the saints whom I have mentioned naturally attracted my attention more than any of the others, as his name was the same as that by which I was known.[2] There is not a more original figure among all the saints of Brittany.  The story of his life has been told to me two or three times, and each time with more extraordinary details.  He lived in Cornwall, near the little town which bears his name (St. Renan).  He was more a spirit of the earth than a saint, and his power over the elements was illimitable.  He was of a violent and rather erratic temperament, and there was no telling beforehand as to what he would do.  He was much respected, but his stubborn resolve to take in all things his own course caused him to be regarded with no little fear, and when he was found one day lying dead on the floor of his hut there was a feeling of consternation in the country.  The first person who, when looking in at the window as he went by, saw him in this position, took to his heels.  He had been so self-willed