The city of Is according to Louis-Antoine-Francois de Marchangy

English trans. Erik Stohellou
© 2011 Erik Stohellou

uddenly a deep gulf made put off the shore, it was the Bay of Douarnenez. This bay is a conquest of the ocean, which now occupies the place of a city that once flourished in places where the fisherman is sailing his boat. The banks are covered with debris, and the passages that intersect between these fragments still retain the names of the streets of the submerged city. One sees there the street of the Silversmiths, where there are only a few stones which lay between the Moreton and the Horned Grebe and the judel. The Goldsmiths' street, where one sees only the sea plants' azure cups, the streets of the Sculptors, which is lost in strikes in the distance moving.

The sailors told me that there once flourished the city of Is, without equal in all Gaul by its size, its wealth and beauty. The king Gralon reigned, pious, just, beneficent in all things but his daughter Dahut indulged in excessive indecency. These vices attracted the wrath of heaven. Three times an old and unknown bard came at the close of day and foretold misfortune on the threshold of the palace profaned by the guilty girl. His advice was ignored, and the people, corrupt himself preferred to follow bad examples. The same prophet came one morning to find Gralon, he led him out of town. Once he was gone, the city fell, the great waters came by force, and all was submerged. It is, however, that the city of Is must reappear one day with its buildings and its inhabitants, who will have been properly washed of their sins. One who will, a Trinity Sunday, the first discover his great tower out of the abyss of the waves, and who moreover will know three hymns, will by rights become ruler of the city and its dependencies, without the Duke of Britain to put opposition.

The crew alarmed told us that we should immediately put us in prayer, because we were going through the famous passage of Raz, between the Island of Saints and the lands of Cleden. Already we hear with horror, on neighboring peaks, croak the two ravens in which , following an ancient tradition, passed the souls of King Gralon and Dahut her lewd daughter.

Sources : Louis-Antoine-François de Marchangy, Tristan le voyageur, ou La France au XIVe siècle. Tome premier. 1825