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Pommerol suggests, no other than the ancient Celtic god Grannus, whom the Romans identified with Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in France but in Scotland and on the Danube.
Pommerol suggests, no other than the ancient Celtic god Grannus, whom the Romans identified with Apollo, and whose worship is attested by inscriptions found not only in France but in Scotland and on the Danube. Thus in the province of Picardy "on the first Sunday of Lent people carried torches through the fields, exorcising the field-mice, the darnel, and the smut.
The lads and lasses go about from house to house, making the customary request; in some places they wear masks or are otherwise disguised. See Ch. Beauquier, op. cit. pp. 31-33. Curiously enough, while the singular is granno-mio, the plural is grannas-mias. Dr. Pommerol, "La fête des Brandons et le dieu Gaulois Grannus," Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, v.
When the pyre is half consumed, the bystanders kindle the torches at the expiring flames and carry them into the neighbouring orchards, fields, and gardens, wherever there are fruit-trees. As they march they sing at the top of their voices, "Granno, mo mio, Granno, mon pouère, Granno, mo mouère!" that is, "Grannus my friend, Grannus my father, Grannus my mother."
If the name Grannus is derived, as the learned tell us, from a root meaning "to glow, burn, shine," the deity who bore the name and was identified with Apollo may well have been a sun-god; and in that case the prayers addressed to him by the peasants of the Auvergne, while they wave the blazing, crackling torches about the fruit-trees, would be eminently appropriate.
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