Description The Val sans retour is a deep valley located in the
Paimpont forest. The entrance to the Val is near the town of
Tréhorenteuc, in
Morbihan, and the site is inseparable from this village. However, the Val sans retour is officially a part of the territory of the municipality of
Paimpont, department of
Ille-et-Vilaine. The valley is a natural extension of the Paimpont forest massif. It is surrounded by ridges, cut through with purple schist, a type of rock typical of the region. The valley as a whole retains the scars of the various fires that affected it throughout the twentieth century, favoured by the prevalence of conifers in the area. The vegetation consists of oaks and pines, with an alternation of rocky moors and wooded areas. The site is also home to a wide variety of birds, primarily passerines. The Val sans retour is subject to several ecological protections due to the variety and fragility of its flora and fauna. It is covered twice as a "
Zone naturelle d'intérêt écologique, faunistique et floristique": once for the stream area, and a second time by the forest of Paimpont. It is also a
Natura 2000 site.
History The Val sans retour was the first place to claim a link with the sites of Arthurian legend. It was not predisposed to become a popular tourist site due to its position far from any main roads and the town of Paimpont. For the majority of its history, the Val sans retour served as a location for both metallurgical and agricultural activity. Specifically, it was used as a pasture for domestic animals and as a supply of animal bedding.
19th century (Celtic Revival) During the
Celtic Revival of the 19th century, claims of Aurthurian sites in Brittany began to gain traction. In his 1811 poem
La table ronde (The Round Table),
Auguste Creuzé de Lesser situated the Brocéliande forest in Brittany, near
Quintin. Ludovic Chapplain, a founding member of the Lycée Armoricain, argued for the location of the legendary Val in Brittany in the 1823 article ''À Monsieur l'éditeur du Lycée Armoricain'' (To the editor of the Lycée Armoricain). In 1812, amateur archaeologist Jean-Côme-Damien Poignant and poetry enthusiast François-Gabriel-Ursin Blanchard de la Musse associated the exploits recounted by this poem,
La table ronde, with the Marette Valley, located to the east of the Paimpont forest massif. Notably, they placed the "pavilion" of the fairy Morgan that the Lancelot-Graal located in the Valley of No Return in the
Château de Comper. By 1850, the location of the Val sans retour had been moved slightly to the west due to the establishment of a metallurgy building from the Paimpont forges, which distorted the legendary character of the Marette valley by contradicting the image of unspoiled nature. The importance of the landscape became paramount in the selection of a substitute location: the Rauco valley, near Tréhorenteuc, where it remains to this day. Félix Bellamy definitively confirmed this new location in the 1890s.
Early 20th century (Father Gillard) in Tréhorenteuc, starting point for visits to the Valley of No Return from 1945 to 1963 Appointed rector of
Tréhorenteuc in 1942, Father
Henri Gillard recognised the potential for the Christianisation of Arthurian legends to re-invigorate local faith. He personally funded a 12-year restoration of the
church of Saint Onenne, In 1972, the mayor of Paimpont created the "Tourist Office of Brocéliande", with the stated goal of managing tourism in the Paimpont Forest (including the Val sans retour). Several sites of touristic interest are located within the Val: • Le Miroir aux fées (The Fairies' Mirror) is a lake located at the entrance to the Val that was previously the source for a water mill. It is associated with a local legend that claims it was inhabited by seven fairy sisters, who can purportedly be seen by looking into the lake. == Notes ==