"The thousand-year oak where a miraculous spider saved a priest, and seekers still come for healing"
Chêne à Guillotin
Concoret, Bretagne, France
On the edge of Broceliande forest stands an oak that may be a thousand years old, its hollow trunk blackened with age yet still alive. During the French Revolution, tradition holds, a refractory priest hid inside while Our Lady of Paimpont transformed into a spider, weaving a web across the entrance that convinced pursuing soldiers no one could have entered. Today, people suffering from illness come to touch the ancient bark, seeking to borrow the tree's enduring vigor.
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Quick Facts
Location
Concoret, Bretagne, France
Tradition
Site Type
Coordinates
48.0169, -2.1675
Last Updated
Jan 19, 2026
The Chene a Guillotin is a pedunculate oak estimated between five hundred and a thousand years old, standing at the edge of Broceliande forest. Its most famous legend involves the miraculous protection of a refractory priest during the French Revolution. The tree continues to serve as a site of healing pilgrimage.
Origin Story
The tree's most celebrated story dates to the Revolutionary Terror of the 1790s. A refractory priest—accounts name either Pierre-Paul Guillotin or Joachim Masson—refused to swear the oath required by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Pursued by Republican soldiers, he fled into the forest and hid in the hollow trunk of an ancient oak.
With the soldiers approaching, a spider appeared and began to weave. In merely two hours—an impossibly short time for such work—the spider completed a web across the entrance. When the soldiers arrived, they saw the unbroken web and concluded that no one could have entered recently. They moved on; the priest escaped.
The miracle was attributed to Our Lady of Paimpont, who transformed herself into a spider to protect the faithful. The story links the tree to Marian devotion and positions it as a site where divine intervention occurred within living memory (at the time the story circulated).
An earlier tradition associates the tree with Eon de l'Etoile, a twelfth-century heretic who led a band of outlaws through Broceliande before his capture and imprisonment in Reims. This layer connects the tree to older currents of resistance and refuge.
Key Figures
Our Lady of Paimpont
Notre-Dame de Paimpont
divine
The Virgin Mary under her local Breton title. According to tradition, she transformed into a spider to save a faithful priest from Revolutionary soldiers. The miracle demonstrates her protection of those who remain loyal to the Church.
Eon de l'Etoile
historical
A twelfth-century heretic who claimed divine authority and led a band of outlaws terrorizing Brittany before his capture. The tree's earlier name, Chene des Rues-Eon, connects it to his legend.
Spiritual Lineage
The tree carries no institutional lineage; no religious order maintains it, no church claims it. Its sacred significance developed through folk tradition and continues through informal practice. The 2017 designation as Remarkable Tree of France represents official recognition, but the tree's significance to visitors depends not on certification but on centuries of accumulated meaning—miraculous protection, healing touch, simple persistence through time.
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