- Source: Tadig Kozh (Placide Guillermic)
Abbot Placide Guillermic, nicknamed Tadig Kozh, (born January 5, 1788, in Plounez, died April 28, 1873, in Bégard), was a Catholic priest and canon mythologized by Breton beliefs. Little biographical information is known about him, but eyewitness accounts mention the exorcisms this rector of Bégard performed at Méné-Bré in the Saint-Hervé chapel. Anatole Le Braz recounts that Tadig Kozh possessed knowledge of life and death, as well as supernatural powers, enabling him to reincarnate indefinitely, and to command demons and the wind. According to Claude Sterckx, Tadig Kozh is one of the few characters from Breton folklore who can be directly linked to themes from Celtic mythology, in particular Merlin.
Etymology
In Breton, Tadig Kozh means "old dad", a term of endearment for the elderly. According to Anatole Le Braz's collection, this name was given to the abbot because he used to address his parishioners by saying "Contet d'in ho stad, va bugel. Me eo ho tad, ho tadic-coz!" (in Breton), or "Tell me about your state, my child. I'm your father, your old dad!". The nickname stuck.
Biography
According to the vital record, Placide Marie Guillermic was born in Plounez on January 5, 1788, to Jean Guillermic and Françoise Le Calvez.
An account was collected in 1886 in Penvénan, from a certain Baptiste Geffroy, who described him as "an old priest from the past". Gwenc'hlan Le Scouëzec and Dominique Besançon point out that many people of the time have fond memories of this abbot, reputed to be a "great thaumaturge". According to the Côtes-du-Nord departmental archives, he was rector of Bégard from 1838 to 1873. In the mid-19th century, Tadig Kozh, under the official name of "Monsieur Guillermic", performed impressive exorcism sessions at the summit of Menez Bré in the Saint-Hervé chapel, during which he "climbed barefoot to the summit on full-moon nights, ordering the demons to parade before him", before "sending them back to hell with a spray of holy water". This is known as the Ann ofern drantel, or midnight mass. The abbot seems to have been a specialist in these exorcism sessions. He died on April 28, 1873, aged 85.
Legend
During his lifetime, Tadig Kozh undoubtedly embodied the ideal exorcist priest, a person very close to his parishioners. Popular imagination transformed him into a character endowed with supernatural powers: he was said to be able to tame ghosts, lock up evil souls in the body of an animal and save those of the dead. Around 1880, the rector of Plounez wrote that Yves (sic) Placide Marie Guillermic went blind at an early age, but was cured by a miracle. Another legend has it that Placide Guillermic, together with the Lannion priest Cloarec Prat, and a third person "as intelligent as the two of them", were able to stop the wind from blowing.
His canonical age is the source of another part of his legend, as Baptiste Geffroy states that Tadig Kozh "had only been known as an old man", ten times dead and ten times resurrected, because God had entrusted this priest with "as many powers as the Pope". He was said to have possessed the secrets of life and death, conversing with the devils of hell by sticking his head through the window well. During a personal investigation, Daniel Giraudon heard the account of a woman born in Tréglamus in 1897, who claimed that Tadig Kozh had recognized a devil in a deceased person, which led to a lawsuit by the family of the deceased. During this trial, Tadig Kozh enumerated the devils, provoking the arrival of a swarm of crows, which he interrogated by giving each of them a flax seed.
Tadig Kozh was thus seen as an omniscient figure with mastery and knowledge of the elements and reincarnations, like Merlin and the Irish druid Fintan. As such, although he was originally a real person, he can be linked to Celtic mythology.
Notes
References
Bibliography
Le Braz, Anatole (1893). La Légende de la mort en Basse-Bretagne (in French). Paris: Honoré Champion.
Stéphan, Alain (1996). Tous les prénoms bretons (in French). Paris: Editions Jean-paul Gisserot. p. 49. ISBN 2-87747-172-1.
Sterckx, Claude (1994). "De Fionntan au Tadig Kozh : figures mythiques d'Irlande et de Bretagne". Irlande et Bretagne : vingt siècles d'histoire : actes du colloque de Rennes (29-31 mars 1993) (in French). Terre de Brume.
Sterckx, Claude (2014). Mythologie du monde celte (in French). Marabout. ISBN 978-2-501-09717-8.
