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Origin and history

The menhir called Dent de Gargantua is a white quartz block shaped like a four-sided obelisk, measuring 5 meters high, 3 meters wide north side and 2 meters south side. Located in Saint-Suliac in Ille-et-Vilaine, it dates from the Neolithic and is the only megalithic vestige still visible on the town. Ranked as a historical monument in 1889, it bears witness to the ancient occupation of this Breton territory.

According to a local legend, the giant Gargantua, in love with a fairy met on the banks of the Rance, would have spit this stone after breaking his tooth by trying to devour an infant replaced by a rock. The legend also explains the formation of the plain of Mordreuc and the appearance of two other rocks (Bizeux and Cancale), linked to the anger of the giant. These accounts associate the menhir with other missing megaliths, such as the Gargantua Gravel (envased) and the Gargantua Bed (dolmen destroyed in 1850).

The site was once surrounded by other megalithic monuments, now missing: a second broken menhir (Gravier de Gargantua), as well as three dolmens mentioned by historian Paul Banéat, including La pierre Couvretiere and Le Berceau de Gargantua, destroyed in the 19th century. These vestiges illustrate the importance of neolithic funeral and symbolic practices in the region, now partially erased by erosion and coastal development.

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