| The Fair Use Policy applies to this video. Denez Prigent - Ar Sonerien Du - Les Sonneurs Noirs (A Legend) "AR SONERIEN DU " is about two musicians (biniou and bombard) whose special feature was to always get dressed in black (« DU » means « black » in Breton). They animated weddings and fairs in all the Bigouden county, but priests and bourgeois didn't like them. One evening our two musicians, coming back from a wedding, were drunk and were lying in a ditch. They were found and arrested by the police before their innocence was established. The policemen were on their way to hang two thieves in Pont- l'Abbé. The two thieves were released, and the players were arrested and hanged instead of them. This affair caused a big stir in Bigouden County, because the musicians, though drunkards doubtless, were good and honest people, held in high esteem. They were buried in the locality "Les Justices". Their grave became a place of pilgrimage for all those who had known them, and their gravestones can still be found. In Denez Prigent's version of the legend, the gendarmes kill and hang the musicians in order not to admit to having let the real thieves escape, also insisting on the reputation of debauchery which the conformists gave at the time to festive music. The song is a tribute to the two musicians. |
