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Brittany   Ille-et-Vilaine (35)  

Menhir de Champ-Dolent

Standing Stone / Menhir

<b>Menhir de Champ-Dolent</b>Posted by MothImage © Tim Clark
Latitude:48° 32' 10.17" N
Longitude:   1° 44' 59.7" W

Added by Jane


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Fieldnotes

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We were staying at a camp site nearby after a day on Mont St Michel
and arrived at the stone about 7.30pm. Only one family of Germans interupted our inspection of the menhir.,though there was enough stone for everyone, menhir isn't enough word for this one, back home I call 6ft a tall one, this is a stone spacerocket ready to take off at any moment. Quite simply the biigegt stone Iv'e ever seen . At the stones foot is a little boulder shined black from centuries of bums.
Awsome
postman Posted by postman
1st August 2007ce

It's 32 feet tall, damnit! Jane Posted by Jane
30th July 2007ce

Folklore

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Dol is situated in the north of the departement of Ille-et-Vilaine, not far from the sea-coast. Near it, in a field called the Champ Dolent ('Field of Woe'), stands a gigantic menhir, about thirty feet high and said to measure fifteen more underground.

It is composed of grey granite, and is surmounted by a cross . The early Christian missionaries, finding it impossible to wean the people from frequenting pagan neighbourhoods, surmounted the standing stones with the symbol of their faith, and this in time brought about the result desired.

A strange legend is connected with this menhir. On a day in the dark, uncharted past of Brittany a fierce battle was fought in the Champ Dolent. Blood ran in streams, sufficient, says the tale, to turn a millwheel in the neighbourhood of the battle-field. When the combat was at its height two brothers met and grappled in fratricidal strife. But ere they could harm one another the great granite shaft which now looms above the field rose up between them and separated them.
Legends and Romances of Brittany, by Lewis Spence (1917) p24.
Rhiannon Posted by Rhiannon
15th January 2008ce