According to Bretonian Folklore, the nain is a figure fearsomely Celtic in its hideousness, resembling the gargoyles which peer down upon the traveller from the carven "top-hamper" of so many Breton churches. Black and menacing of countenance, these demon-folk are armed with feline claws, and their feet end in hoofs like those of a satyr. Their dark elf-locks, small, gleaming eyes, red as carbuncles, and harsh, cracked voices are all dilated upon with fear by those who have met them upon lonely heaths or unfrequented roads. They haunt the ancient dolmens built by a vanished race, and at night, by the pale starlight, they dance around these ruined tombs to the music of a primitive refrain:

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,

Thursday and Friday.

Saturday and Sunday they dare not mention as being days sacred from fairy influence. We all remember that in the old tale of Tom Thumb the elves among whom the hero fell sang such a refrain. But wherefore? It would indeed be difficult to say. Deities, credited and discredited, have often a connexion with the calendar, and we may have here some calendric reference, or again the chant may be merely a nonsense rhyme. Bad luck attached itself to the human who chanced to behold the midnight revels of the nains, and if he entered the charmed circle and danced along with them his death was certain to ensue before the year was out. Wednesday was the nains’ high-day, or rather night, and their great nuit festale was the first Wednesday in May. That they should have possessed a fixed festival at such a period, full of religious significance for most primitive peoples, would seem to show that they must at one time have been held in considerable esteem.

But although the nains while away their time in such simple fashion as dancing to the repetition of the names of the days of the week, they have a less innocent side to their characters, for they are forgers of false money, which they fabricate in the recesses of caverns. We all recall stories of fairy gold and its perishable nature. A simple youth sells something on market day to a fairy, and later on turning over in his pocket the money he has received he finds that it has been transformed into beans. The housewife receives gold from a fairy for services rendered, and carefully places it in a drawer. A day when she requires it arrives, but, alas! when she opens the cabinet to take it out she finds nothing but a small heap of withered leaves. It is such money that the nains manufacture in their subterranean mints — coin which bears the fairy impress of glamourie for a space, but on later examination proves to be merely dross.

The nains are also regarded as the originators of a cabalistic alphabet, the letters of which are engraved on several of the megalithic monuments of Morbihan, and especially those of Gavr’inis. He who is able to decipher this magic script, says tradition, will be able to tell where hidden treasure is to be found in any part of the country. Lest any needy folk be of a mind to fare to Brittany to try their luck in this respect it is only right to warn them that in all probability they will find the treasure formula in ogham characters or serpentine markings, and that as the first has long ago been deciphered and the second is pure symbolism they will waste their time and money in any event.

Sorcery hangs about the nain like a garment. Here he is a prophet and a diviner as well as an enchanter, and as much of his magic power is employed for ill, small wonder that the Breton peasant shudders and frowns when the name of the fearsome tribe is spoken and gives the dolmens they are supposed to haunt the widest of wide berths au clair de la lune (1514: p.96-98).