from a minor aristocratic family in which the Breton language was often spoken. In 1837 at the age of twenty-two, he began his study of the traditional Breton songs, and five years later he also turned his attentions to medieval Welsh and Breton romances. Both Souvestre and Villemarque include a version of the legend of the sunken city in their respective works. Le Foyer Breton is divided into four 'hearths,' each representing one of the four divisions of Brittany. In the introduction to this work Souversre states that 'we have heard these narratives before their heather or seaweed fires.'1 The third foyer is a campfire on the island of St. Nicolas in the Bay of Douarnanez in southern Finistere. Souvestre, accompanied by the widow and son of the former ferryman, as well as an old fisherman and a customs agent, have taken refuge there during a storm. After a supper of fish chowder poured from a cauldron, they tell stories around the fire to pass the time. The old fisherman tells the story of 'Keris,' which relates the submersion of the city of Is beneath the waves of the Bay of Douarnanez, as punishment for the wickedness of its inhabitants. The fisherman appears to have been influenced by their present surroundings, since Souvestre states that 'the wind . . . carried to us the thousand odours of the shore and the sea murmured at our feet with a remnant of anger.'2 The fisherman provides vivid details in his recitation, for example, descriptions of the city and the port, details which one would expect from someone who had lived most of his life along the sea and who knew all the ports along the coast of Brittany. In the year following the publication of Le Foyer Breton, Villemarqu6 re-edited Barzaz-Breiz and included a new poem, entitled 'Livaden Geris,' or 'The Submersion of Keris,' which is given below in an English translation. The poem seems to be based on some version of the same story which Souvestre had previously recorded. Villemarqu6 claimed that he had collected the story from one Thomas Penvenn, an inhabitant of the parish of Tr6gunk in southern Finistere, in other words not too far from the place where Souvestre had collected his tale.