When I was a child, my favorite comic series was Asterix the Gaul. I didn’t own the books, but my school library was stocked full of them, along with that other great Francophone graphic series, Tintin. (For Minoo Dinshaw on childhood reading, see page 43.) Each entry in Asterix ran along the same lines: In 50 B.C., all of Gaul is under Roman control—except for a tiny village in Brittany where a motley crew of warriors, magicians, and morons, aided by a magic potion, manages to maintain its independence. (Alberto Fernandez examines another former Roman province, Syria, on page 9.) As with all great comics, much of the humor is visual, and it’s often provided by Asterix’s sidekick Obelix, an overweight menhir salesman who is always seen carrying one of his giant rocks. (Alexander Larman considers James I’s own sidekick on page 51.)
I never knew exactly what a menhir was. And I forgot all about the word—one of the few English borrows directly from Breton—until this past summer when I saw several thousand of them while driving through Brittany with my family. (Jude Russo lists other borrowed English words on page 57.) When I told our publisher, who usually writes in this space, about this drive, he replied, “Better to see it before it’s gone.”
A menhir is a large, upright stone, set deep in the ground. Sometimes they are arranged in groups, but more often they stand alone. No one knows who erected them, or why, or even where many of them came from. (For Paul Griffiths on another alien presence, see page 30.) The most extensive formation, in Carnac, is the subject of a fanciful story, consonant with the world of Asterix. It is said that these three thousand stones, arranged neatly on an otherwise barren field, were once an invading Roman legion, until the wizard Merlin froze them in time. (Dominic Lynch retells another local legend on page 7.)
As with all objects of historic curiosity, the menhirs of Brittany are a burden to those who own the land on which they rest. It’s not just the tourists. (For Matthew Walther on parish tourism, see page 21.) Every time a new one is accounted for, it is declared a protected landmark, and often the landowner is deprived of his land’s usefulness. And so the land falls to waste and reverts to wilderness. The invading armies have been repulsed after all.
