Case file · Folklore / legend
The drowned city of Ys
Breton legend tells of Ys, King Gradlon's city in the bay of Douarnenez, drowned when his daughter Dahut opened the sea gates; Albert Le Grand's 1636 'Lives of the Saints of Brittany' popularised it.
1636 CE · 48.09, -4.33 · status: legend
The account
Fishermen claimed to hear its bells under the waves; Dahut became a mermaid (Marie Morgane). Earlier forms of the story appear in late-medieval sources.
Connections in the atlas
- Lyonesse, the lost land of Cornwall
- Manannán mac Lir and his cloak of mist
- Cantre'r Gwaelod, the drowned hundred