A Childhood in Brittany

By Karen Bennett

[Written in October 2009. A revised version appeared in the December 1, 2009 issue of the Folk Dancer, the magazine of the Ontario Folk Dance Association.]

For my second column ... I'm going to do more excavation from a mouldering old book, in this case something I discovered at AbeBooks.com when doing a search for "Brittany": Anne Douglas Sedgwick's A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago, published in New York in 1919. Says the foreword: "This little sheaf of childish memories has been put together from many talks, in her own tongue, with an old French friend." The extracts are from pages 62 to 67 and 185 to 186.

Anne Douglas Sedgwick (1873–1935) was an American whose family moved to London when she was nine. She was a prolific and popular author whose fiction (published from 1898 to 1929) observed European and American cultural differences. A Childhood is the only non-fiction she wrote. Despite the simple prose of A Childhood (the kind that could be read to children at bedtime), there’s much of interest for folklorists, including descriptions of food, costumes, and a vanished way of life.

The book’s pen-and-ink drawings are too dim to reproduce, so I’ve provided illustrations from my modest collection of old French postcards (and there’s not a single naughty one in the lot, so there).

The narrator is a child named Sophie Kerouguet, born in the town of Quimper, Brittany, to a well-off middle-class family.

To celebrate the later birth of a sister for Sophie, their father organized a fête at one of his country houses, which he used as a hunting-lodge.

"It was among the lower meadows, in a charming, smiling spot planted with chestnuts, poplars, and copper beeches, that the table for the thirty huntsmen was laid in the shade of a little avenue. Already the crêpe-makers from Quimper, renowned through all the country, were laying their fires upon the ground under the trees, and I must pause here to describe this Breton dish. A carefully compounded batter, flavored either with vanilla or malaga, was ladled upon a large flat pan and spread thinly out to its edge with a wooden implement rather like a paper-cutter. By means of this knife the crêpes, when browned on one side, were turned to the other with a marvellous dexterity, then lifted from the pan and folded at once into a square, like a pocket-handkerchief, for, if allowed to cool, they cracked. They were as fine as paper—six would have made the thickness of an ordinary pancake, and were served very hot with melted butter and fresh cream, of which a crystal jar stood before each guest, and was replenished by the servants when it emptied.

"The crêpes were eaten at the end of the luncheon as a sweet, and among the other dishes that I remember was the cold salmon—invariable on such occasions, salmon abounding in our Breton rivers—with a highly spiced local sauce, filet de boeuf en aspic, York ham, fowls, Russian salad, and the usual cakes and fruits....

"After the feasting two famous biniou[bagpipe]-players took up their places ... and played the farandol, the jabadao, and other country-dances.... The players wore a special costume: their caps and their stockings were bright red; their jackets and stockings and waistcoats bright blue, beautifully embroidered; their full white breeches of coarse linen. Like all the peasants at that time, they wore their hair long, falling over the shoulders.… The women's skirts were of black or red stuff, with three bands of velvet, their bodices of embroidered velvet, and they all wore a gold or silver Breton cross, hung on a black velvet ribbon, round their necks.... Among the coifs I remember several beautiful tall hennins. What a day it was!....

"Crêpes seem to be present in nearly all my Breton memories. The peasants made them for us when we went to visit them in their cottages, and it would have hurt their feelings deeply had we refused them. We children delighted in these visits not only on account of the crêpes, but on account of the picturesque interest of these peasant interiors. The one living-room had an earthen floor and a huge chimney-piece of stone, often quaintly carved, and so large that chairs could be set within it about the blazing logs. The room was paneled, as it were, with beds that looked, when their sliding wooden doors were closed, like tall wardrobes ranged along the walls.... A narrow space between the tops of these beds and the ceiling allowed some air ... to reach the sleepers, and, within, the straw was piled high, and the mattress and feather bed were laid upon it. It was quite customary for father, mother, and three or four children to sleep in one bed, several generations often occupying a room.... The beds were climbed into by means of a carved chest that stood beside them. These were called huches, and contained the heirloom costumes, a store of bread, and the Sunday shoes!"

When Sophie was aged about 10, she and her family moved to Paris, where the "novel" ends. Her Breton memories dated from the late 1830s and early 1840s.