Aulne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the homonymous Belgian abbey on the Sambre, see Aulne Abbey
The Aulne is a 140 km long river in the Western part of France, flowing down the hills in French Bretagne and emptying into one of the many fjord-like bays just south of Brest. The river is part of the Canal de Nantes à Brest, the navigation canal that once connected the city of Nantes on the Loire river with the port town of Brest on the Atlantic coast. This canal is still navigable over part of its length, but through going ship traffic is interrupted because of the hydropower dam of Guerledan, which submerged a number of the original locks of the canal. The Aulne river flows through Châteaulin.
Aulne in French means "alder" (genus Alnus). Some alders, like willows, prefer wet habitats, so they typically grow along rivers like the Aulne or in marshy areas. Whether due to a mistranslation of "Erlkonig" or not, the word "Erlkönig" (as in Goethe's poem) is rendered in French (as in the title of Michel Tournier's eponymous 1970 novel) Le Roi des aulnes i.e., the Alder King.
