Brittany has a species of dwarfs or gnomes peculiar to itself which in various parts of the country are known as crions, courils, or gorics. It will at once be seen how greatly the last word resembles Korrigan, and as all of them perhaps proceed from a root meaning ‘spirit’ the nominal resemblance is not surprising. Like the nains, these smaller beings inhabit abandoned Druidical monuments or dwell beneath the foundations of ancient castles. Carnac is sometimes alluded to in Breton as "Ty C’harriquet", "the House of the Gorics", the country-folk in this district holding the belief that its megalithic monuments were reared by these manikins, whom they describe as between two and three feet high, but exceedingly strong, just as the Scottish peasantry speak of the Picts of folk-lore — "wee fouk but unco’ strang". Every night the gorics dance in circles round the stones of Carnac, and should a mortal interrupt their frolic he is forced to join in the dance, until, breathless and exhausted, he falls prone to the earth amid peals of mocking laughter. Like the nains, the gorics are the guardians of hidden treasure, for the tale goes that beneath one of the menhirs of Carnac lies a golden hoard, and that all the other stones have been set up the better to conceal it, and so mystify those who would discover its resting-place. A calculation, the key to which is to be found in the Tower of London, will alone indicate the spot where the treasure lies. And here it may be of interest to state that the ancient national fortalice of England occurs frequently in Breton and in See Nutt's "Celtic and Mediæval Romance". Some of the immigrant Britons into Armorica^* probably came from the settlement which was later to grow into London, and may have carried tales of its ancient British fortress into their new home.

The courils are peculiar to the ruins of Tresmalouen. Like the gorics, they are fond of dancing, and they are quite as malignantly inclined toward the unhappy stranger who may stumble into their ring. The castle of Morlaix, too, is haunted by gorics not more than a foot high, who dwell beneath it in holes in the ground. They possess treasures as great as those of the gnomes of Norway or Germany, and these they will sometimes bestow on lucky mortals, who are permitted, however, to take but one handful. If a person should attempt to seize more the whole of the money vanishes, and the offender’s ears are soundly boxed by invisible hands (1514: p.98-99).