There are many legends connected to the Chateau of Combourg, such as a miraculous spring which restored sight to the blind, its role as the birthplace of tales of the Round Table, as well as stories of phantoms, the most famous of which concerns a wooden leg and a cat.

‘People were convinced that a certain count of Combourg who had a wooden leg and had been dead for three hundred years, appeared at particular times, and that on the tower staircase some had encountered the wooden leg going for a walk, sometimes alone, accompanied by a black cat’. Mémoires d’outre-tombe, Book 3, Chapter 3

The story is said to relate to Malo-Auguste de Coëtquen, Count of Combourg. His wooden leg replaced the limb lost at the Battle of Malpaquet in 1709. After his death at the chateau, the wooden leg, accompanied by a black cat, haunted the staircase. This legend comes from a genuine medieval practice: it was sometimes the custom to wall up a black cat in the foundations of buildings as a charm against bad luck. It seems that the chateau of Combourg was not immune from such a practice: the corpse of this animal was found in a secret staircase of the Tour du Chat when the chateau was restored. Mummified in the 14th century, it is still on display today in a glass case in the bedroom occupied by François-Réne when he was a child.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, the first writer of the Round Table romances, hails from Dol-de-Bretagne. For his narrative, he drew inspiration from real places and families. Thus, the coat of arms of Lancelot can be found at the Château de Combourg. The famous shield with three vermilion bands, which gives the strength of three knights, is displayed in the grand salon of the fortress and represents the Coëtquen family, once owners of Combourg.

Even though the 12th century account by Chrétien de Troyes did not yet mention the origins of Lancelot, his coat-of-arms, described in the tales of the Round Table in the 13th century, can be found at the Chateau of Combourg. Indeed, the famous shield with three vermillion bands, which gives the strength of three knights, figures in the great salon of the fortress and represents the Coëtquen family, once proprietors of Combourg.

In the 12th century’, wrote Chateaubriand, ‘the cantons of Fougères, Rennes, Bécherèl, Dinan, Saint Malo and Dol were covered by the forest of Bréchéliant which provided a battlefield for the Franks and the people of Dommonée. Wace tells how one could see man in a savage state there, the Fontaine de Barenton and a golden basin’. (Memoirs de l’outre-tombe, Book 1, Chapter 6)