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Olivier Eudes
YS AND THE SUBMERGED TOWNS
Translated from french by Diane Hoggarth
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Are the submerged towns told by popular traditions imaginary or not ? Did they really exist ? Can we find any traces of them ? From the legend of the town of Ys, Olivier Eudes makes here a detailed investigation about what could be a local emergence of the myth of Atlantis. And it also is a mind game. « When proof was weak, says the author, we insisted on wanting to believe it in order to make it weaker, and when it was strong, we made the impossible to destroy it. » The proof resisted. After having explored available data on meteorology, tectonics and archeology, Olivier Eudes concludes : « This myth is not the dream of a people, it’s part of its memory. The entire submersion of cities, of the under water Pompéi is not symbolic...
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Ys existed,we are certain of that. Not only can we not seriously deny the possibility it existed, but furthermore we have acquired the certitude that the legend of this town hides many others. Submerged towns along the coasts of Bretagne are countless. If we haven’t discovered them yet, it’s because the sea has prevented us from seeing their last traces or because we have not looked properly. »
Olivier Eudes is a journalist and a essayst. He published numerous works on Breton and Celtic history : Ys et les villes englouties, ed. Ouest-France, Histoires Extraordinaires des châteaux de Bretagne, Pygmalion, and aslo Contes et comptines pour petits bretons sages and Contes du Diable, ed. Terre de Brume.
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Cover illustration : Ma mère un soir a vu la ville d’Ys, Lucien Levy-Dhurmer,
1898, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest. D.R.
Layout : © ATHENA PRODUCTIONS / PhC
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