Observations placeholder
Brittany - The Carnac woman who beheld funerals in the future
Identifier
014032
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
This is a lot more complex than it first appears.
The story does not say how many times she got it right. Predicting deaths is not dissimilar to issuing a death prayer and whether she did it deliberately or not that would have been how it worked.
The predictions of the funeral arrangements is irrelevant because this could be a self fulfilling prophecy.
A description of the experience
The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries, by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, [1911]
The following story, which I found at Carnac, will serve to illustrate both the profundity of the belief in the power of the dead over the living in Lower Brittany, and how deeply the people can be stirred by the predictions of one who can see the dead; and the legend is quite typical of those so common in Armorica:--
Fortelling Deaths.--'Formerly there was a woman whom spirits impelled to rise from her bed, it made no difference at what hour of the night, in order to behold funerals in the future. She predicted who should die, who should carry the corpse, who the cross, and who should follow the cortège. Her predictions frightened every one, and made her such a terror to the country that the mayor had threatened to take legal proceedings against her if she continued her practice; but she was compelled to tell the things which the spirits showed her. It is about ten years since this woman died in the hospital at Auray.'
The source of the experience
CelticConcepts, symbols and science items
Concepts
Death prayerSymbols
Science Items
Activities and commonsteps
Activities
Overloads
Visit sacred sitesVisiting standing and marked stones
Visiting telluric hot spots