Sebillot, PAUL, an eminent French folklorist, was born at Matignon, in the department of Côtes-du-Nord, February 6, 1843. After his studies at the communal college of Dinan, and a course of law at Rennes, he came to Paris to become a notary, but soon abandoned the pen for the pencil. The pursuit of his art carried him to Saint-Brieuc and Pont-Aven, and many an out-of-the-way corner of Brittany, and opened up to him stores of old-world lore in which he was to find the main interest of his life. From 1870 to 1883 he exhibited in the Salon as many as twenty pictures, but he gradually abandoned art for folklore, and made his name widely known by a series of admirable books. He succeeded to Henri Martin's seat in the Commission for Megalithic Monuments, became chef du cabinet at the ministry of Public Works, and was nominated Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in July 1889. He edited the Revue des Traditions Populaires from its foundation (1885), and acted as general secretary to the Congrès International des Traditions Populaires at Paris in 1889.
Among his works are Contes Populaires de la Haute-Bretagne '3 series, 1880, 1881, 1882); Littérature Orale de la Haute-Bretagne (1881); Traditions et Superstitions de la Haute-Bretagne (2 vols. 1882); Contes de Terre et de Mer (1883); Gargantua dans les Traditions Populaires (1883); Le Blason Populaire de la France (with H. Gaidoz, 1884); Contes des Provinces de France (1884); Coutumes Populaires de la Haute-Bretagne (1885); Légendes, Croiances, et Superstitions de la Mer (2 vols. 1886, 1887); besides Bibliographies of the folklore of Brittany, Alsace, Poitou, Auvergne, and France d'Outremer, and a host of papers on Breton language and folklore.