The following text is from the first chapter of William Branch Johnson's 1927 work Folktales of Brittany (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.), that chapter entitled "Some Popular Saints." St. Anne is traditionally the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Douarnenez, the area mentioned in the text, is located in Finestère (literally Land's End), the western most département of Brittany, France.
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St. Anne -- it need not, of course, be repeated -- was a Breton. She was a queen, -- greater than that, in Breton eyes, she was a duchess, -- beloved of the poor for her charity and kindness, browbeaten by her husband whose strongest fear was the fear of begetting children. When,
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therefore, St. Anne found that she would become a mother her natural joy was tempered by a brooding grief. Dutifully but sadly she told her husband; he, falling into a passion and abandoning mercy, turned her from beneath his roof for ever.
Desolate, she wandered by the lonely shore of the Baie de Douarnenez; when she saw lying at anchor a white ship with a white Angel at the helm.
"Hurry," declared the Angel, "for there is no time to lose."
"But where are you going to take me?" asked Anne, stepping on board.
"God's will is in the wind," replied the Angel.
The ship set sail and, after many days and nights, made a foreign port. This, Anne learned, was Jerusalem, and here, her time being nearly come, she landed, giving birth a few days later to a baby girl; and when the baby was born, angels stood over her crying sweetly that she was the Virgin Mary who should be the mother of the Lord Jesus Christ.
With the pride and the fear of this knowledge before her, Anne brought up the child in ways of strict piety, taught her her letters and her canticles, trained her in great purity of soul. And when she saw her work finished, Anne fell into distress of spirit and sore longing for the coast of her beloved Brittany.
"Only let me see my Breton people once more," she prayed.
Her prayer was answered. The boat appeared again in the harbour; but this time the Angel was dressed in black, for Anne's husband had died during her absence.
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Again they made the perilous voyage, landing finally near Douarnenez.
Now the return of Anne had already been noised abroad along the coast; a great concourse of people, therefore, assembled to welcome their beloved lady. But she waved them away.
"Not in pride but in humility do I return to you," said she. "Give my goods to the poor; for myself, let me spend the rest of my days in a hut on the shore where I may pray in peace."
Every night and every morning she might be seen on the beach in prayer, and when she had grown so old that nobody could guess her age, she was visited by a Radiant Being, Who was her grandson, Jesus. He came, accompanied by Peter and John, to beg the blessing of St. Anne before going to Calvary. And gladly she gave it to Him.