Foret de Broceliande
— the wood the stories kept coming back to.
Not only on a wall.
“A forest in Brittany, about an hour west of Rennes, that medieval poets named Brocéliande before the road maps did. Some 9,000 hectares of oak and beech around the village of Paimpont and its 13th-century abbey. Inside it: a megalithic tomb the locals have called Merlin's for centuries, a spring at Barenton where a stone step was said to summon storms, and a valley where Morgan le Fay was said to hold faithless knights. The Arthurian centre at Comper still publishes the legends in French and Breton. People walk in for the stories and stay for the moss.
Foret de Broceliande, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Forêt de Brocéliande is the literary name for the Forêt de Paimpont, a 9,000-hectare wooded massif in the Ille-et-Vilaine department of Brittany, about 30 kilometres west of Rennes. The village of Paimpont sits at its eastern edge, on the lake that fronts a 13th-century Benedictine abbey founded by Saint Judicaël in the 7th century. Much of the forest is privately held but walkable on marked paths, including a section of the GR-37 long-distance trail. Visitors generally enter at Paimpont itself or at the Château de Comper to the north, which houses the Centre de l'imaginaire arthurien.
The forest enters European literature in the 12th century. The Norman poet Wace recorded the name 'Brécheliant' in his Roman de Rou around 1160, telling readers he had walked there hoping to find marvels and found none. Chrétien de Troyes set Yvain, the Knight of the Lion (c. 1177) at its Fontaine de Barenton, where pouring water on a stone step would call up a storm. The 13th-century Vulgate Cycle placed Merlin's enchantment by Viviane here, and the Val sans Retour where Morgan le Fay was said to imprison faithless knights. The Tombeau de Merlin and the Hotié de Viviane are Neolithic megalithic remnants the romances renamed centuries later.
Four named legendary sites lie within walkable distance of Paimpont village. The Tombeau de Merlin, a fragmentary Neolithic alignment about 3 kilometres from the village, is reached from a small parking area on the D773. The Fontaine de Barenton lies west of there, off a forest path from the hamlet of Folle-Pensée. The Val sans Retour sits on the southern flank near Tréhorenteuc, where François Davin's gilded-bronze Arbre d'Or has stood since 1991, installed after the great forest fire of 1990. The Château de Comper, 16 kilometres north of Paimpont, hosts the Centre de l'imaginaire arthurien with seasonal exhibitions and storyteller events, typically open late March to early November.