Breton Legend - The Horses of Vaugirard - France
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16mm Film - Breton Legend - The Horses of Vaugirard - France 1961
Script and Direction: Louis Grospierre
Camera: François Charlet
Music: Georges Delerue
Cast: Unknown
On the Breton coast, a fisherman's boy finds a sick seagull among the rocks. He cares for it and eventually forgets about it, until shortly afterwards he hears a legend from an old Breton man: "All seagulls are the souls of the departed. But woe if people disappoint them through bad deeds, then they fly to the rocks by the sea, spread their wings, and at dawn turn to stone themselves." Shaken by the story, the boy, full of fear and guilt, rows out to the rocks in a storm against his grandfather's prohibition. Here, after an anxious search, he finds his seagull again, now recovered. At the end of the film, the narrator asks: "How could the boy know that the seagull he found was the soul of his father? His soul did not turn to stone. He saved it." — "But how can a soul be saved from being turned to stone by the elves of Avalon? Surely that is an old legend."
The short film tells its story in a calm, almost epic style. With its images from the Breton fishing village and the rugged rocky coast, it attempts to convey an impression of the harsh landscape against the backdrop of which the viewer is to experience the legend and the boy's adventures. The original French title remains a mystery; it translates as "The Horses of Vaugirard." One explanation might be that seagulls are sometimes also referred to as "horses of the sea."
Script and Direction: Louis Grospierre
Camera: François Charlet
Music: Georges Delerue
Cast: Unknown
On the Breton coast, a fisherman's boy finds a sick seagull among the rocks. He cares for it and eventually forgets about it, until shortly afterwards he hears a legend from an old Breton man: "All seagulls are the souls of the departed. But woe if people disappoint them through bad deeds, then they fly to the rocks by the sea, spread their wings, and at dawn turn to stone themselves." Shaken by the story, the boy, full of fear and guilt, rows out to the rocks in a storm against his grandfather's prohibition. Here, after an anxious search, he finds his seagull again, now recovered. At the end of the film, the narrator asks: "How could the boy know that the seagull he found was the soul of his father? His soul did not turn to stone. He saved it." — "But how can a soul be saved from being turned to stone by the elves of Avalon? Surely that is an old legend."
The short film tells its story in a calm, almost epic style. With its images from the Breton fishing village and the rugged rocky coast, it attempts to convey an impression of the harsh landscape against the backdrop of which the viewer is to experience the legend and the boy's adventures. The original French title remains a mystery; it translates as "The Horses of Vaugirard." One explanation might be that seagulls are sometimes also referred to as "horses of the sea."
Sources
- YouTube channel: The Art of Film on 16mm · video ↗ — title, description, video
- 16mm Filmography editors — title, year, description
Record added 2026-06-12 21:02:52