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by the sQU'WeSler, but she didn't need to see it. In her hean and soul she
knew it was Bill come to the end of his long journey. She buried her face
in her hands and with a moan fell senseless to the floor. She was laken 10
bed, lay three whole days knowing nobody, not a sound passed her lips
bUI a low moan and the name of the boy who was drowned. When she
came to her senses, the priest broke the hard news as genlly as he could
and she didn't take it as hard as he thought she would. "I know, falher,"
she said quietly, "I saw Bill in the kitchen the night I fell and I knew then
thaI he was gone. They thought it was all part of her illness, and try as
she would she couldn't persuade them of the truth of what she had seen till
they found a piece of seaweed on the kitchen floor. A strange weed it was
and nothing like any that was ever seen around these parts. They sent it
away to a place that knows about such things to have it examined, and
they learned it was a seaweed commonly found around the coast of South
America where the sailing vessel on which Bill was shipped had gone
down. 1
These apparitions, first of all, make "traditional" sense. Like omens, such experiences
attenuate the shock of death: "she didn't take it as hard as he thought she would." They
support lhe view that one is not abruptly wrenched from life but thai death comes as a
natural mutation process allowing the survivors time to adjust. The Breton expression by
which "he was in good health when he got sick and was sick when he died"2 suggests
similar rationalization of death. In "visualizing" those exposed 10 danger as already
removed from life, fetches, as personalized omens of death, function as liminal markers.
The phenomenon, akin to telepathy, which earlier appeared to be unusually developed in
the local consciousness, likewise facilitates the resolution of the bereavement crisis through
anticipatory grief.
FClches also make affective sense. These Oashlike visions of the person dying or
"marked for death" are interpreted as an adieu to his dear ones, and allow thcm to solve the
intolerable paradox, in the traditional view, of lone and distant death. Identificd fctches
suggest acute anxiety for those exposed to particular risk_ Thc persons seen as fctches are
oflen in a state which causes concern for their well-being, whcthcr through disease,
abscnce at sea or war, which facl justifies a seemingly greater proportion of female
percipients. Such apparitions seem to relate to the constant stress endured by the
fishemlan's wife:
1MUNFLA FSC 66-006D, p. 6.
2Pierre-Jakcz Hclias. Tht Jlorst of Pridt: Lift in a Breton Village, trans. Junc Guieharnaud
(New Havcn: Yalc UP, 1978) 106.