The past several months have been such a roller coaster, due to personal and family matters, that I've been remiss in telling you about one of the nice things that happened this summer: my trip to Brittany to see the French opening of the "Sir Lanval" exhibition. This exhibition (as you may remember from my previous post on the subject) is part of the Shared Legends Project, a collaboration between the Chagford Filmmaking Group here in Devon (the folks who turned my step-daughter into a dragon last summer) and the Centre de l'Imaginaire Arthurien in Brittany (organized by my friend Claudine Glot, an expert in French myth and folklore).

In the first part of the project, the two groups worked together to make a film of "Sir Lanval," a 12th century lay by Marie de France about a poor Arthurian knight and a beautiful fairy queen. In the second part, artists from (or with strong connections to) Brittany and Dartmoor contributed works inspired by "Sir Lanval" to an exhibition that premiered this summer at the castle pictured above, in the legendary forest of Broceliande.

For the opening, the project organizers brought artists from both sides of the Channel together for five glorious days in Broceliande. We were hosted royally, with storytelling in the woods, trips to mythic sites, a music concert at the Chapel of the Holy Grail, and many other delights.

View from a castle window

Harp music and storytelling in the forest

  Riders in the forest and castle courtyard

Tile-work mural in the Chapel of the Holy Grail

The pictures here are from that magical trip: from the castle and forest where we spent our days, and from La Gacilly (a village full of artists, like ours here on Dartmoor) where we spent our nights -- and where Rima Staines (one of the other artists in the exhibition), Tom Hirons, and I got the chance to visit dollmaker Virginie Ropar's enchanting house and studio.

The village of La Gacilly (above and below)

The exhibition moves to the Breton city of Rennes this autumn, which is where the finished "Sir Lanval" film will have its French premier. The English film premier and exhibition opening take place in Exeter in December -- which is when it will be our turn to host the French artists in our village at the edge of mythical Dartmoor. It will be a challenge indeed, for our Breton friends have set the bar of hospitality very high!

The "Val sans Retour" (Valley of No Return) in Arthurian myth

Breton fields and farmhouses

Poster art by two of the painters in the exhibition: Brian Froud (Dartmoor) and Olivier Ledroit (Brittany)

You'll find more pictures of Broceliande and the exhibition over on Rima's blog, The Hermitage (August 7th post, Chapter 3). You can see my contribution to the exhibition in my previous "Sir Lanval" post  --  and here's me under the trees of that deeply mythic forest (below, in a photo taken by a Breton friend), with my hair in my eyes and a book in my hands, as usual....