Tombeau de Merlin

Paimpont

The monument is a tomb, but it is four thousand years older than the enchanter: a Neolithic gallery grave, ten and a half metres long, in slabs of purple schist, most of which treasure hunters overturned in the 19th century. In October 1892 Félix Bellamy found the monument "ravaged from top to bottom" by treasure hunters; by 1894, he writes, nothing at all remained of the gallery; two standing stones, backed against a holly tree, are shown today where it is thought to have stood. It was in 1820 that an examining magistrate of Montfort-sur-Meu, Jean-Côme-Damien Poignand, published in his Antiquités historiques et monumentales the "discovery" of Merlin's tomb at Les Landelles, on the strength of an etymology and of the romance tradition: the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, in the 13th century, shut the enchanter up "parmi la forest broceliande" (in the forest of Brocéliande), enclosed by Niniane-Viviane in an invisible circle out of which his voice alone came. The name took: in 1837 Théodore Hersart de La Villemarqué published in the Revue de Paris his Visite au tombeau de Merlin, in which a peasant tells him that "his lady slew him by cunning", and the place entered the guidebooks from 1868. The monument was classified in 1934; since then messages, flowers and wreaths of leaves have been laid between the stones, under the holly. No tradition earlier than 1820 attaches Merlin to this spot: it is here that the Brocéliande of the books received its first address.

Wikipédia — Tombeau de Merlin ↗

Getting there : From Paimpont, the road to Saint-Malon-sur-Mel (D 31); signposted car park at the roadside after about 4 km; a path of a few minutes to the monument, then on to the fontaine de Jouvence. Free access.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound