Montfort-sur-Meu - History and Legend - Legend

Legend

The legend of the duck is transmitted from one generation to another since the 15th century.

• In the first version, the legend says that a young and beautiful girl, prisoner of the Lord of Montfort, is moaning. She prays Saint Nicolas to escape from her abductor and to keep her virginity. The Saint grants her prayers. She's miraculously transformed into a female duck, flies through the window of her cell and settles on the castle's pond.

Then, and for many centuries, a wild female duck was coming every year in the church, around Saint Nicolas day, and was leaving one of her ducklings as an offering to the miraculous Saint.

• In the second version, the story says that around 1386, during the completion of the town, the lord would have locked a beautiful girl up in his castle. She understood very fast what was waiting for her and, catching sight of Saint-Nicolas church, started praying the Saint, promising she would come to thank him if she could escape.

Unfortunately, she felt in the hands of the Lord's soldiers who wanted to do what they thought their master had done. She looked around to find some help but only saw two female ducks on the water of the pond (pond which has been dried up since). She prayed Saint Nicolas, beging him to allow these animals to be witnesses of her innocence and to make them accomplish every year her wish on her behalf if she had to loose her life. She managed to escape from the soldiers but died, apparently of fear, a bit later. She was buried in Saint-Nicolas churchyard.
However, the same year, during the Translation (when a Saint is transferred from one place to another), while the crowd was flocking to the relics of Saint Nicolas, a female duck came in the church with her ducklings. She fluttered near the picture of the Saint, flew to the altar and saluted the crucifix. Then, she came back near the picture of the Saint and stayed there until the end of the service. At this moment, she flew with all of her ducklings, except one, who stayed in the church.
The story became so famous that, as it is written in many documents dating from the following centuries, Montfort-sur-Meu became Montfort-la-Cane for more than 300 years.
Every time the female duck came to the church, it had been written on sheets. The last appearance is dated from the 8th of May 1739. However, as only the archives dating from later than the 15th century have been kept, many stories are missing, even though, as an ecclesiastic said "In the past, these events became so common that we weren't taking time to right them anymore".