The Sun.
London, England, 1828-01-29 00:00:00

LAKE OF GRAND LIEU.

The Lake of Grand Lieu is situated about fire
miles W.S.W. of Nantes, and abounds with fish;
carp and pike, weighing from thirty to forty pound;
each, being often taken in its waters. In some place:
it is very shallow, and in others no bottom can be
found. Although not subject to any tide, its waters
are sometimes greatly agitated without any apparent
cause, and tremendous waves break over its banks,
Boats have been sometimes swamped in crossing this
little sea during one of the tempests, which ere al-
ways the forerunners of very high winds, generally
taking place about three days afterwards.
This Lake before the Revolution, was the pro-
perty of the Marquis de Juigne, brother of the late
Archbishop of Paris ; and here he regularly held a
Court of Justice :—the Tribunal wee seated in a
boat, about two hundred paces from the bank of the
Lake ; and when the Judge gave the sentence, lie
was obliged to let his right foot touch the water.
At the eastern extremity of the lake is a small
Sandy islet of a circular fi,;:tre, about five cr sia
hundred paces in diameter, and called file d'Un.
In the middle of this island is an upright atone,
about five feet in height, and twu or three feet bread
at the base. This stone appears to be deeply cm=
bedded in the earth, and has a round hole in it, she
inches in diameter, and about two feet from the
ground, which serves, according to an old tradition
to stop up the mouth of a gulf formed by the waters
of the lake. This gulf encloses an enormous giant,
whose vain efforts to escape from his prison occa-
sion those dreadful tempests of which we have just
spoken. According to a curious MS. of the year
1022, the giant will remain for ever incarcerated,
unless a young virgin lift up the stone. To effect
this, she is to put her left arm in the hole of the
stone, and to hold a consecrated girdle iv her left, in
which a slip-knot is to be made, for
ot:etplp;o:
being put over the neck of the giao.ri who will lit,
tuediately become tractable and obllgig, and what
is more, a very devout Christian. Vi hen (Ili, is
done, there will be no more tempests, Near the
stone which closes up the
prison is the trunk,beinat.PPt eitr.ceonsfttitYBngtotfol‘all:r. erottrilind:rokEankid.n a:Out the
giant was the antagon.is
[erected all the preaching of this good man in the,
city of Hesbauge.
It may not
fable of the giant residing in the Isle d' 17;z, or Han,
that of Sleep (from the Celia
wor is,Han, sileh:Otclevidently the same as that re-
lated by
Plutarch, of a
balou t ale, giant who lived in an island
consecrated to sleep, on the coast of Brittany, where
he kept watch over a god, who was in chains and
i
cast locked n the arms of Somnus. It is. extremely
curious
ito hear in the present day the people of a
canton n France relating a tradition, or rather a fe,
recorded by Plutarch ; to see, even
our OW time, a tribunal held in a boat on the banks
if it lake, when we know, from ancient authertz, that
he inhabitants of continental Britain (Bretagne)
,'ere charged to convey departed spirits in a heat to
t4e opposite coast of insularßritairond that thoh.'gyp.
tiaras passed judgment on their dead on the hank of
lake, before they carded them over in a vesel to
he other side. It is equally curious to observe that
he names of the places bear an allusion to these
ircumstances. The name of the lake, Grand Lieu,
s composed of the French Word grand, large; and
,f the Celtic /oricia or lake. The mimez of tie rivers
.ongnon, Ogne, and Boulogne, have for their coma
non root the Celtic word cows or aon, fear cr
ght—the tm 0 first signifying the rivers of fl :sr;
he third, Boulogne, is the river of the gulf of fear,
Isis word being composed also of the Celtic pouf.,
Itch or gulf. Hence the lake and the three Fie( ra
.vere, in the ancient French mythology, the lake
A vcenus, and the rivers Styx and Acheron,