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Updated: June 13, 2025
In a corner, under the shadow of a column knelt Dame Josserande in fervent prayer, but often did the dear woman turn towards the door to watch for the coming of her son.
To pretend that Dame Josserande paid much attention to all these words would be false; for her son possessed her whole soul, and she thought, "This is the first time he has ever disobeyed and deceived me. The demon of avarice has entered into him. Why does he want so much money?
While Josserande again seized her axe, the grand abbot had time to say, "Do not complain, you two unhappy ones; for your suffering here below changes your hell into heaven."
It came to pass that as all these young people, Pol Bihan, Matheline, and Sylvestre Ker, gained a year each time that twelve months rolled by, they reached the age to think of marriage; and Josserande, one morning, proceeded to the dwelling of the farmer of Coat-Dor to ask the hand of Matheline for her son, Sylvestre Ker; at which proposal Matheline opened her rosy mouth so wide, to laugh the louder, that far back she showed two pearls which had never before been seen.
And he looked with conflicting feelings at the empty seats of Matheline and of his dear mother Josserande. Little by little had he seen the black hair of the widow become gray, then white, around her sunken temples. That night memory carried him back even to his cradle, over which had bent the sweet, noble face of her who had always spoken to him of God.
"Where did all this happen," she asked, with tears. And as Sylvestre Ker gently answered, "I have seen them, mother; they are very beautiful," Josserande divined that he spoke of her god-daughter's two pearls, and cried, "By all that is holy, he has also lost his mind!" Then seizing her staff, she went to the Abbey of Ruiz to consult St. Gildas as to what could be done in this unfortunate case.
He was interrupted by a distant vibration of the bells of Plouharnel, which rang out the first signal of the midnight Mass. Josserande instantly left her wheel. "It would be a sin to spin one thread more," said she. "Come, my son Sylvestre, put on your Sunday clothes, and let us be off for the parish church, if you please."
By the road which led up to the tower a shadow slowly descended; it was not the wolf, but a poor woman in mourning, whose head was bent upon her breast, and who held in her hand an object that shone like a mirror, and the brilliant surface of which reflected the moonbeams. "It is Josserande Ker!" was whispered around the circle, behind the rocks, in the brambles, and under the stumps of the oaks.
Sylvestre Ker obeyed, and when he had finished, Josserande kissed him, took up her staff, and proceeded towards the convent of Ruiz to ask, according to her custom, aid and counsel from Gildas the Wise. On the way, men, women, and children looked curiously at her, for throughout the country it was already known that she was the mother of a wolf.
And the grand abbot having touched it with his crosier, the wolf crouched at his feet, panting, trembling, and bloody. Gildas the Wise bent over it, looked at it attentively, then said, "Nothing happens contrary to God's will. Where is Dame Josserande?" "I am here," replied a mournful voice full of tears, "and I dread a great misfortune."
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