　おいしい！

Sunday, October 22, 2006

A much belated entry for the Brocéliande Forest. This is a huge huge huge forest in western France. Kiba and I decided to do a little hiking since we were in the region. The girl in the guide office told us that hikers generally need more than a day to trek through the whole forest even by car. The best plan will be to drive to a specific site, get off the car and hike around the area before hopping onto the car, driving off to the next site and hike again. Of course, you can choose to do all these by foot but not much ground would be covered then. The best way would be to rent a kind of chalet in the forest and take several days, walking and enjoying the beautiful forest. Since we had only one day at our disposal, we had to do the best we can!

The Brocéliande forest is the forest affiliated with the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the round table. King Arthur is brought up by the Wizard Merlin and all this took place in this forest itself! There is even a castle in the forest! Apart from that, there is a golden tree, the fairies' mirror and the Barenton fountain where the wizard Merlin first saw and fell in love withthe fairy Vivian. There is also the valley of no return and other magical names as such. Just being in the forest gives you a magical feeling. It's funny as when I visited the first site, I just took it as a beautiful place geographically with no idea of the magic since I did not read the guidebook and david did not tell me the legends behind it. Sigh. Thus he was amazed that I can remain unmoved by being in the magic. Haha. Fact is, how would I know there is magic when I am not told about the legends! After all, I know nothing about King Arthur before I visited this forest!

L'arbe D'or (The golden tree)

Our first checkpoint is Le Val Sans Retour (The Valley of No Return). We decided to make it a kind of scavenger hunt but not scavenging anything in particular in fact. Heh. The golden tree is a symbol of the fragility and the richness of the eternal forest. It has become the new guardian of The Valley of No Return. (Yup, kind of like the Ent in the Lord of the Rings!) However, I'm sure the tree is gold plated by human beings as I could see the plated gold peeling off. Heh. However, it's still very nice isn't it?

Le Val Sans Retour (The Valley of No Return)

This is the Valley of No Return and the lake is Le Miroir aux Fees (The Fairies' Mirror). The scenery is really beautiful from such a great height but somehow I couldn't help thining that it will be much better if the lake is cleaner and clearer! heh. Later on when I showed these photos to mum-in-law, she said that it's not so true as both me and david returned after all! Funny! The subtle lameness of this family. =P

I'm on the top of the world looking, down on creation and the only explanation I can find...

I'm flying!!!!

I believe I can fly, I believe I can take you to the skies...

The beautiful forest with a group of people listening attentively to a storyteller

Le Fontaine de Barenton (The Barenton Fountain)

The story teller is amazing. Here we had arrived at the second checkpoint which is Le Fontaine de Barenton (The Barenton Fountain) and the story teller was in the midst of telling the story about the black knight and continued with the love story of the Wizard Merlin and the Fairy Vivian. The story goes as such. Apparently, Vivian was born a mortal. She was told by a fortune teller that she would marry the best and most powerful man on earth but she was not allowed to leave the forest ever for the prophecy to come true. Thus Vivian stayed in the forest all her life waiting to marry this powerful man. This man was of course Merlin. Being a powerful wizard, Merlin was able to foresee the furture and it is at this fountain of Barenton that the two came to meet. Of course, they fell in love and they got married and lived happily ever after.

Or not. The happily ever after lasted, but only for a while. Merlin taught Vivian magic with no reserves and as a result, she became more and more powerful. It was thanks to Merlin, that she was able to become a fairy with magical powers. They loved each other but alas, Vivian was soon discontented. As Merlin was part of King Arthur's court and kind of surrogate father, he always fought alongside King Arthur and assisted him in the battles. Of course he'd be gone for days on ends and returned home triumphant after each battle. The possessive Vivian became jealous and wanted to keep Merlin by her side. One day, she asked Merlin if he knew of any magical powers which can keep someone by one's side. Since Merlin had the gift of prophecy, he knew what Vivian was going to do. However, out of pure love, he still taught the skill to Vivian. Vivian mastered the skill and executed the magic, imprisoning Merlin in nine circles of air so as to keep him by her side. And that would be where he was imprisoned till the day he died. However, word has it that Merlin never died but was always entrapped within these nine circles of air. The story teller went on to say that if we felt a gentle breeze on our cheeks, it might be Merlin, softly caressing our cheeks in sadness. Upon hearing these, the women in the group starts giggling nervously and I bet their spines must be tinkling with excitement, nervousness or fear. As for me, I felt shivers down my spine and I felt awfully sad for the wizard Merlin. Why did he allow it to happen when he knew that he would be imprisoned? How could Vivian do this to him when she loved him? Sigh sigh. A sad tale indeed. When you see bubbles in the fountain of Barenton, make a wish and it is said that it will come true. I was lucky to see bubbles and I can't help dropping a coin in the fountain for good luck. :) Don't know, but I always feel it's romantic to put coins in fountains. :)

Kiba in the clearing of The Barenton Fountain

As it was getting late, we decided to visit one last check point and it was supposedly the world's biggest tree. Standing at 20m high with a circumference of 9.65m, Kiba was interested to check it out. Thus, we hiked back to the car and drove to the site of the tree.

The 1000 year old "biggest" tree

As you can see, we were both disappointed as it certainly did not look like the biggest tree in the world to me. Kiba was disppointed too. However, apparently it helped to shelter the French during the war as the tree trunk is hollow and the soliders were able to hide in the trunk. There is a hole in the tree and one can look through it to see that it is in fact hollow.

The tree with the same story telling group that we met earlier

It was kind of embarrassing as we met the same people again. They were the ones we met at the Barenton Fountain. It would be really funny if they thought we were following them.

As it was getting late and we still had a long journey home, we have no choice but to leave the beautiful Brocéliande forest. However, we will certainly go back there and explore the rest of the checkpoints that we did not have time for. After all, I have yet to see the castle! This trip had also aroused my interest in the legends of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table and I would certainly read up on it. Till then.

Halloween's party this coming weekend and more pictures peeps! Good day!

12:32 pm　うまい！Y