Korrigans: The Fairy Folk of Brittany

If the Ankou represents death's solemnity, the korrigans embody life's mischief. These fairy beings, similar to Irish leprechauns or Cornish piskies, inhabit Brittany's wilder spaces: stone circles, caves, moorlands, and especially the ancient dolmens and tumuli that dot the landscape.

Descriptions vary by region, but korrigans typically appear as small beings, no taller than a child, with dark skin, red eyes, and wild hair. Female korrigans possess extraordinary beauty and golden hair that they comb by moonlight—but woe to any mortal who spies them at their toilet, for they guard their privacy jealously.

Korrigans embody contradictions. They can be helpful: - Leading lost travelers to safety (if treated respectfully) - Revealing locations of hidden treasure - Granting wishes to those who aid them

But they're equally capable of malice: - Stealing human babies and leaving changelings - Leading travelers astray with dancing lights - Cursing those who disturb their stones or insult them

The Night Dancers

One of the most persistent korrigan traditions involves their nocturnal dances. Around stone circles, especially on Wednesday nights (their sabbath), korrigans dance in wild rings. Their revels create fairy rings in the grass—circles where the grass grows differently, marking places where the Otherworld touched ours.

Mortals who stumble upon these dances face a choice: join the dance or refuse. Both carry risks. Those who refuse often face curses—aging rapidly, losing their way, or finding their luck soured. But those who join may dance for what seems like minutes, only to discover years have passed in the mortal world. Some never return at all, carried away to the korrigans' underground kingdoms.

Young Pierre the miller joined the korrigans' dance one October night near the Carnac stones. The beautiful korrigan maiden who took his hand had eyes like stars and a laugh like silver bells. Round and round they whirled until the cock crowed. Pierre found himself alone among the stones as dawn broke. When he returned to his village, his mill stood in ruins, overgrown with ivy. His wife had remarried, thinking him dead. His children, babies when he left, now had children of their own. He had danced for thirty years in a single night.