THE GIANT HOK-BRAS
The three-deck ship.
Since that time, it is said that Landerneau has preserved his aunt the moon and its immortal light, known throughout the world.
You see that it is quite a valuable quality to be able to become greater than others; and I am sure that if there were still a fairy like that on earth, she would have a lot of practice. There are so many people in this world who have the weakness of always wanting to be greater than others...
You can well imagine that our little giant - who was barely twelve to fifteen feet tall in his ordinary days - had caught a little heat on his trip to the moon, and he very much regretted when passing through Loperhet that the sea was not under your feet to quench your thirst and bathe comfortably.
At that time, as you know, Brest Harbor did not yet exist.
"Hey, said Hok-Bras to himself, if I dug a small pond here, near my house, it would be very convenient for bathing every morning, and perhaps it would please my aunt. Let's go!"
He uprooted a few oaks, took on a size and strength proportionate to the task, grabbed two or three old barges from the Landerneau River to use as a bowl, and set to work.
On the first day, he dug a large basin from Daoulas to Lanvéoc.
On the second day, he dug from Lanvéoc to Roscanvel, and on the third day, as he was in a hurry to complete the work with a feat worthy of his fiancée, crack! he gave a big kick to the mound which closed the narrows, and soon he had the pleasure of feeling the sea water pleasantly tickling his calves at a nice height, because at that moment he measured, it is said, more than a thousand feet from heel to neck.
But the wind was blowing a little strongly from the West; the waves rushed with the violence that you can imagine by the opening of the new channel. So much so that a three-deck vessel (you understand, a three-deck vessel before the flood), which was passing under full sail towards Pointe Saint-Mathieu, found itself carried along by the current and entered the harbor downwind, which was filling up visibly. — And three!
The harbor of Brest was born for the glory of Brittany. But, to his father's misfortune, it happened that Hok-Bras having knelt to drink a drink and taste the water from his new fountain, happened that the three-decked vessel sank in, with its sails, masts, and cannons, in the throat of our giant, where it remained halfway stopped by the yards of the mainmast. Ouch! Hok-Bras felt three-quarters strangled.
Source: Le Géant Hok-Bras from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
In this part of the tale, Hok-Bras continues his legendary modification of Lower Brittany.
He is creating the Roadstead of Brest.
The harbor of Brest, with his Arsenal, is one of the two main French naval bases. The other one is Toulon on the Mediterranean Sea.
In this tale, there is mention of the town of Lanvéoc on the Roadstead of Brest. On the territory of this town is the French Naval Academy, the École navale, where I spent two years as a cadet in 1968-1970.
The long building is where the cadets are lodged.
I was a Navy officer for twenty years. In 1988, I became a software engineer.
-- Vincent Celier