Breton Legends

AnonymousProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 263K words
Chapters: 27

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971, and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Breton Legends by Anonymous. Author: Anonymous. Language: English. Class: GR: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation: Folklore. Release Date: Dec 21, 2012

Editor's review

This book is a collection of Breton folk legends from Project Gutenberg's free eBook program, credited to Anonymous, in English, and classified under folklore. Brittany lies in northwestern France and has a deep Celtic cultural heritage; its folk tales often carry a distinctive regional flavor and a supernatural atmosphere, offering some reference value for understanding European regional folklore. As a public-domain eBook, its greatest strengths are that it is free, easily accessible, and openly available—suitable as supplementary material for folklore studies, Celtic culture, or English reading practice. Readers should approach it with a comparative eye, setting it against legends from Ireland, Wales, and other Celtic regions, or using it as an introductory reader for French local culture. Note that this is an early digitized text with plain formatting and annotation, and the sources and collecting background of the stories may not be fully explained; readers should not treat it as a rigorous scholarly edition but rather as a starting point for casual reading and browsing.

Who it's for

A good fit for

General readers interested in Celtic culture and European folk legends
Supplementary reading for students of folklore and anthropology
Learners who want to practice English reading through short stories
Writers and creatives collecting material on local legends

Not a good fit for

Folklore researchers seeking authoritative translations, annotations, and scholarly verification
Readers who prefer full-length novels with complete plots
Readers with high expectations for eBook formatting and annotation quality

Reading tips

Start with the table of contents and pick story types that interest you; no need to read straight through.
Prepare a map or background material on Brittany and refer to locations as you read.
Group stories with similar motifs and compare them, noting shared figures and plot elements.
Skip unfamiliar place names or cultural terms at first, then look them up together after finishing.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

What language is this book written in?

The book is in English; the original metadata lists the language as English. The stories come from Brittany, but the version presented to readers is in English, suitable for those with some English reading ability.

Are the legends in the book annotated academically?

From the available information, this is a public-domain electronic text provided by Project Gutenberg, a folklore reader with plain formatting; it is not indicated to include systematic scholarly annotation or source verification. For research use, consult an annotated scholarly edition for comparison.

Why is the author listed as Anonymous?

Folk legends are often collective creations passed down orally over long periods, and the original recorder or editor is not named in the metadata, so the author is listed as Anonymous. This does not affect reading the stories themselves, but it means the specific collectors and compilation process are hard to trace.

Comments

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About the author

Anonymous Author

Anonymous is a collective designation used in English-language publishing for works whose authorship is unknown or unsigned, rather than the real name of a single author. The 716 titles attributed to this name include the Gospel of John, Psalms, Romans, Luke, Philippians, and 1 Corinthians from the World English Bible, as well as the Gospel of John and Psalms from the King James Version. Such texts are mainly religious classics and ancient folk traditions that were copied, translated, and compiled over long periods, making their original authors difficult to trace; they therefore circulated anonymously. Public information is limited, and neither nationality nor dates of birth and death can be confirmed. The significance of anonymity lies in focusing attention on the works themselves rather than on authorial identity, and in reminding readers of the collective and variable nature of texts in transmission.