There in the desolate plain it rose, “a thing of beauty and a joy for ever.”  Its charm fell upon us in the first moment, its wonderful tone and colouring held us spellbound.  Our first wonder was to find a building so perfect in the midst of this desolate plain, so far away from the world and civilization.  It was our first wonder; and when presently we turned away from it I think it was our last.  But this solitude and desolation add infinitely to its charm; just as the mystery and romance that enshroud the far-off monasteries in their desolate mountain retreats would fall away as “the baseless fabric of a vision” if they were brought into the crowded and commonplace atmosphere of town life.

The legend of le Folgoet is a curious one: 

Towards the middle of the fourteenth century, there lived in a neighbouring forest a poor idiot named Soloman, or Salaun, as it is written in the Breton tongue.  This idiot was known as the Fool of the wood—­le Folgoet.

There, in the quiet solitude, his voice might constantly be heard singing, in his own strange way, hymns to the Virgin; and often during the night, chanting an Ave Maria.  Daily he begged his bread in the neighbouring town of Lesneven, always using the same form of words:  Ave Maria:  adding in Breton, “Salaun a zebre bara.”  “Soloman would eat some bread.”

Thus for forty years he lived, never having injured anyone, or made an enemy.  Then he fell ill, and one morning was found dead in the wood, near the little spring from which he had drunk daily and the hollow tree that had been his nightly shelter.

Soloman the fool was already fading from men’s minds, when a miracle happened.  Above the little grave in the wood where he had been buried there suddenly sprang a white lily, remarkable for its beauty and the exquisite perfume it shed abroad.  But what made it more wonderful was that upon every leaf, in gold letters, appeared the words “Ave Maria!”

This apparent miracle was soon noised abroad, and people flocked from far and near to see the flower, which remained perfect for six weeks and then began to fade.  All the priests and ecclesiastics of the neighbourhood, the nobles and the officers of the Duc de Rohan, decided that they should dig about the root of the lily and discover its source.  This was done, and it was found to spring from the mouth of Salaun the idiot.

Of course such a miracle could not remain uncommemorated.  Jean de Langoueznon, Abbot of Landevennec, one of the witnesses of the miracle, wrote an elaborate account of it in Latin.  Pilgrimages were constantly made to the grave, and at last a church was built over the spring of the poor idiot, whose faith and blameless life had been so strangely rewarded.  Such is the origin of one of Brittany’s finest and most remarkable churches.