• Mary-Ann Constantine and Éva Guillorel
• Published on May 4th, 2017 
• 250 pages 
• Oxford University Press, for the British Academy
• British Academy Monographs Literary Studies 
• Online ISBN: 9780191851483
• Print ISBN: 9780197266199

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‍The British Academy has published an extraordinary anthology of songs from Brittany, presented for the first time in the original Breton with English translation. Miracles and Murders: An Introductory Anthology of Breton Ballads is the work of former British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow Mary-Ann Constantine and British Academy Newton International Fellow Éva Guillorel. These two scholars have created a selection of thirty-five gwerz ballads based on nineteenth- and twentieth-century collected material, in the original Breton with both English translation and musical notation, as well as an enclosed CD of field recordings of 22 of the songs. This book is a treasure for the linguistically challenged enthusiast for Breton traditional culture.

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‍From the introduction: “As often as not, each gwerz presented a choice of recordings. Our final selection was guided by a desire to be as representative as possible, displaying a variety of singers and singing styles, as well as different dialects and different contexts for the performances – ranging from singers noted for their fine voices and their rich repertoires, to more intimate recordings. The geographical spread of the different versions (see Map2) reflects the inequalities in collecting patterns across the different regions of Lower Brittany.”

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‍Thanks to over a century of sound recordings we can now not only read, but listen to the gwerziou. A few of the songs in this edition are only known from 19th-century collections, and in their written form, but most have been collected and recorded many times since. Some of these continue to be regularly sung today. All the versions on the CD were collected from traditional singers who learned their repertoires from family or neighbors, and virtually all were recorded in the field by amateur collectors. This is a beautifully done, serious work, thankfully entirely devoid of any hint of misty Celticism. 

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‍Distinct from neighboring French traditions and unique among other Celtic family languages, these songs unfold in clear, concise verses. Breton narrative songs in the gwerz tradition are vivid, often deeply moving stories, rich with striking imagery and intense drama. Gwerz is defined by the authors as: narrative songs telling serious, often cautionary or tragic stories, featuring precise historical and onomastic detail. 

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‍Each gwerz text is followed by a short analysis giving, where possible, information on its provenance and exploring the literary and historical context of the events it describes. Reference is also made to other versions and occasionally to international parallels. The material covers a wide range of topics, from shipwrecks and murders to penitential journeys, the plague, scenes from war and encounters in love. It draws on themes from the European medieval literary tradition, the literature of other Celtic-speaking countries, and events from Breton history, particularly from the turbulent early modern period.

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‍Essays and notes on almost half the texts underline the exceptional nature of this Breton tradition. These songs, many still sung today, give accurate details of events that happened between the 1400s and 1800, with no apparent written transmission. The songs range chronologically from the sieges of Guingamp (1489 or 1591) to a marriage in the 1570s, the murder of merchants by a nobleman in 1569, the Wars of the League in the 1590s (several texts), a fire in Quimper cathedral in 1620 and murders in the eighteenth century. The authors could have gone further, but chose to limit their selection to the ancien régime period. 

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‍A comprehensive introductory essay offers insights into the history of ballad collection in Brittany, the nature of the songs, and the contexts in which they have been performed. It situates the discovery of the tradition in the context of a broader European Romantic revival of interest in popular culture, and introduces readers to the major collectors and collections of gwerziou from the early 19th century to the present day. It discusses the strengths and limitations of the corpus as it has come down us; what types of song may or may not have survived. 

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‍It also examines the main generic characteristics of the Breton gwerz ballad form, comparing them briefly with narrative songs from France and the other Celtic-speaking countries. It then considers the songs’ relationship to history: what events are recorded in the songs, and how they are presented. The Introduction concludes by considering aspects of performance and the social contexts that have given these songs their cultural meaning and ensured their renewal and survival to the present day.

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‍About the Authors

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‍Mary-Ann Constantine is a Reader in Welsh and English literature at the University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies. Her work is concerned with the relations between and mutual influence of the different cultures and languages of Britain (and to some extent beyond) in the late-18th and early-19th centuries. She has published books on Breton folklore, ballads and songs, Romantic-era forgery, and Welsh responses to the French Revolution.

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‍Éva Guillorel is an Associate Professor in Early Modern History at the Université de Caen Normandie. Her studies have included History, Ethnology, and Celtic Languages, and she has held postdoctoral fellowships in Brittany, Québec, United States and England. Her works is concerned with oral cultures and languages in early modern Europe and Americas, mainly songs. She published her Ph.D. on the links between Breton Ballads and History. Her current work is focused on the circulation and transformation of oral cultures over space and time, including cultural transfers between Europe and North America.

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‍~ Fañch

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