Thus for forty years he lived, never having injured anyone, or made an
enemy. Then he fell ill, and one morning was found dead in the wood,
near the little spring from which he had drunk daily and the hollow tree
that had been his nightly shelter.

Soloman the fool was already fading from men's minds, when a miracle
happened. Above the little grave in the wood where he had been buried
there suddenly sprang a white lily, remarkable for its beauty and the
exquisite perfume it shed abroad. But what made it more wonderful was
that upon every leaf, in gold letters, appeared the words "Ave Maria!"

This apparent miracle was soon noised abroad, and people flocked from
far and near to see the flower, which remained perfect for six weeks and
then began to fade. All the priests and ecclesiastics of the
neighbourhood, the nobles and the officers of the Duc de Rohan, decided
that they should dig about the root of the lily and discover its source.
This was done, and it was found to spring from the mouth of Salaun the
idiot.

Of course such a miracle could not remain uncommemorated. Jean de
Langouëznon, Abbot of Landévennec, one of the witnesses of the miracle,
wrote an elaborate account of it in Latin. Pilgrimages were constantly
made to the grave, and at last a church was built over the spring of the
poor idiot, whose faith and blameless life had been so strangely
rewarded. Such is the origin of one of Brittany's finest and most
remarkable churches.

It is in the second Pointed Gothic style, and is built of a mixture of
granite and dark Kersanton stone. The tone is singularly beautiful, and