SASH OAK

The Guillotin oak is one of the remarkable trees of the beautiful Brocéliande. This pedunculate oak has seen some 800 to 1,000 years of history and has experienced the dark periods of fighting between Chouans and Republicans. This is where its name comes from. Indeed, the abbot Guillotin would have found refuge in the crevice of its trunk (still visible, but now inaccessible) to escape the pursuit of his assailants. He then prayed very hard to the Virgin Mary to protect him. She materialized in the form of a spider and wove a web. The revolutionaries saw her and deduced that no one could be inside and the abbot escaped. Several legends about this and other facts are intertwined: another says that Éon de l'Étoile, a sort of Breton Robin Hood, hid barrels of gold there. It's up to you to find the one that speaks to you the most!

If you like hiking, you should know that a PR® circuit takes you past this multi-century-old oak, but also along the Rox castle, discovering the Barenton fountain (where Merlin saw Viviane for the first time), the places where Éon de l'Étoile lived and walking through the undergrowth and hedgerows of Brocéliande. The hike is called "Au pays des fées" and starts at the car park of the village of Folle-Pensée, in Paimpont (Ille-et-Vilaine). It is 11 km long and takes three hours to complete. The itinerary can be downloaded free of charge from the broceliande-vacances.com website.