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paperandsong · 24 days ago

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Le Follet d’Ep-Nell

From Légendes rustiques, illustrated by Maurice Sand, written by George Sand, 1858

Original French at Project Gutenberg

English translation:

Beneath the stone of Ep-Nell, a bad kind of follet is curled up. A follet with a tail: the worst of all. Instead of tending to the horses and walking them, they frighten the horses, mistreat them and wear them out.

Maurice SAND

Georgeon was the devil of the part of Berry called the Black Valley. I say was, because he is very much forgotten today and one would have to go back to the memory of old men, thirty years dead, to fish out from that river of oblivion - which passes so quickly today - the mysterious name that was never to be written, “not on paper, nor on wood, nor on slate, nor on any stone, nor on cloth, nor on earth, nor on dust or sand, nor even on snow fallen from the sky.” This terrible name, which presided over the most effective and most secret formulas, was only to be entrusted to the ears of the practitioners of sorcery, and telling them more than three times was not allowed. If they forgot, too bad for them. One had to pay to hear it again.

This name was, under no circumstances, to be revealed to non-believers and must never be spoken aloud, except in the darkness of night and in complete solitude. The one who confided it to me had surprised himself and did not believe it. However, he regretted telling me and came back to beg me not to repeat it. “I had bad dreams last night,” he said. “Three times my window opened wide without anyone but myself having entered my room.”

What was Georgeon's rank and title in the hierarchy of evil spirits? That's what I could never find out. It was he who had to be called out to at crossroads, or under certain old trees of ill repute, to make the mysterious spirit appear. Did he have his own power over certain things in nature, or was he only an intermediary messenger between hell and its followers? I would believe it: a man named Georgeon had once been taken to Montgivray by the devil. It is perhaps the work of this evil soul to lead other souls to perdition.

Georgeon was semi-invisible, in the sense that he only appeared on moonless nights or through thick fog. One saw a human form larger than life; but the dress, the features, the details of this form always remained elusive, or so vague that it was impossible to remember him or to recognize him, even by voice, even after various encounters with him. Each time he had to be called by name, it had to be said: “Is it you with whom I spoke on this or that night and in such and such a place?” And if he didn't answer “It's me,” you had to be on guard and tell him nothing about what had happened during any previous encounters with the devil, either because Georgeon hid his identity to test the discretion and prudence of his followers, or that the peasant pushes prudence to the point of distrusting the devil, even after having turned himself over to him.

It is certain, at the very least, that the peasant claims to be as cunning as Satan and that in every country there are marvellous legends full of malice attributed to good guys who know how to fool the demon and catch him in his own traps. Among the best, we must cite that of the fairy-lover reported by the author of La Normandie merveilleuse, which has all the grace of rural language. The fairy fell in love with a beautiful country woman. Every evening, while she was spinning thread by the fire, he would come and sit on a stool at the other corner of the fireplace. The woman, having noticed his presence and his covetous looks, informed her husband, who put on her clothes, took her place and her distaff, and pretending to spin, waited for the pixie. The fairy arrives, looks askance at the strange spinner and says to her: “Where is that beauty, that beautiful woman from yesterday evening, who spins, spins, and is spinning still, because you, you turn, turn, and yet you don’t spin?” The husband makes no reply and waits until the fairy sits down on the stool from which he used to devour the housewife with his eyes, and where a red hot cake pan[10] had been treacherously placed. So the fairy sits down and, indeed, outrageously burns its tail, and utters a loud cry, saying:

“Who has committed this wicked wickedness against me? Is it that beauty, that beautiful woman who is always around?”

“No,” replies the husband. “It is I, myself, who never spins!”

The exasperated fairy flies up the chimney to call his companions who were cavorting about on the roof.

“What are you shouting, shouting about?” they say.

“I am burning, burning!”

“And who burned you, burned you?”

“It is me, myself, the one who never spins.”[11]

This answer seemed so stupid to the other fairies, rude spirits that they were, that the beautiful spinner's husband heard them laugh like mad, booing, fooling around and driving away the poor lover, which made the husband very happy, for he had been afraid of drawing the whole band of pixies against him, and never again did his wife's lover dare to come to his house again.

This Norman legend has a kind of counterpart in Berry, or rather, it is the same legend with variations that capture the local spirit.

Here the follet or fadet, the story does not say precisely what type of cunning spirit, did not have love on his mind. Just like a Berrichon Devil, he thought only of enraging the spinner, who did not spin linen on her spindle but rather spun wool on her wheel, and, instead of gazing upon her with tender eyes, he maliciously tangled and broke her strands, so that while she was mending them, he was able to slip into the arche (the bread box) and steal the cakes that the housewife had saved for her children.

Having noticed this trick, the good woman pretended to know nothing and, bending down, she subtly picked up the fine end of this character's long tail, tied it to a strand of her wool and began to twirl it, twirl it on her spinning wheel, as if it were a skein.

The fadet didn't notice it right away, busy wallowing in the cheesecake. But when the spinning wheel had rolled five or six lengths of tail, he very much felt it and began to shout: “My tail, my tail!” The spinner ignored him, and, still spinning, began to sing: “Pelotte, pelotte, ma roulotte!” with such a good voice and making so much noise with her wheel, that the other devils, trapped on the roof, did not hear the moaning and cursing of their comrade, who was forced to surrender, and to swear by the name of the Big Devil from Hell that he would never set foot in her house again.

According to some versions, the pixie who enjoys tangling up a spinner’s threads is a female spirit, a bad fairy. In my childhood, I heard an old woman say on such an occasion, “The jouillarde got into it!” and she made a cross in her hand to ward off and chase away the diablesse.

What elsewhere is called the goblin, the fairy, the pixie, the farfadet, the kobbold, the orco, the elf, the troll, etc., etc., in Berry, is most often called the follet (wisps). There are good ones and bad ones. There are those who groom the horses in the stable - all farmhands hear their whips and the call of their tongues; and there are those who gallop the horses in the pasture at night, and who braid horses’ manes to make themselves stirrups (since they are too small to stand on the animal's rump and always ride on the neck); they are are quite good little children and run away when approached by men. Their malice consists of causing death or miscarriage to the mares who allow them to cut their mane whenever they please, to braid and knot for their own use. The favourite mounts of the follet are called chevaux bouclés (shaggy horses), and in the old days they were esteemed as the best and most fierce. The groomed follet mares were sought after at fairs as good broodmares.

This follet of the stables still exists among us in the belief of many people. All peasants forty years of age, who have devoted themselves to raising horses, have seen them and swear to it with a candour impossible to doubt. They have never been afraid of them, knowing that they are not mean. They all describe it the same way. He is as big as a small rooster and he has a bright red crest. His eyes are of fire, his body is that of a fairly well-made little man, except that he has claws instead of nails. The tail varies; according to some it is made of feathers, according to others it is an inordinately long rat's tail, which he uses, like a whip, to make his horse run.

In the north of France, some of these nains (dwarfs) are very wicked and take pleasure in leading travellers astray. In La Marche, around the dolmens, all spirits are dangerous and hostile to man because they are in charge of guarding the treasures hidden under the large stones. Woe to the curious and especially to the ambitious who prowl around these monuments at night, where the eternal mystery of tradition reigns. They jump on horses’ necks, knock the rider to the ground and beat him up. However, we can protect ourselves from them in several ways, when we have been bold enough to study - at all risks - their habits and fancies. In general, they are not intelligent and speak the human language with difficulty. Like those of Normandy and like the korrigans of Brittany, they have the mania or rather, the infirmity, of repeating the same word twice, without being able to reach three, or if they exceed this number by doubling it, they can't say it a seventh time.

A treasure hunter, who saw a dwarf jump in front of him, dragging him into a magnetic circle and repeatedly saying to him in a sharp little voice: “Turn, turn,” stopped him short by answering him: “I turn, I return and I turn away.” The dwarf did not understand, and, thinking that this was a formula beyond his knowledge, let go of the man, jumped on the stone and made it dance so hard and turn so quickly that fire came out of it. The man dared not approach it, but he was able to draw back without being followed. Only the dwarf had given him such a spinning motion, making him waltz with him around the devilish stone, that he returned home, still spinning on himself like a spinning top, and went to collapse from fatigue at the door of his house.

George SAND

#légendes rustiques #george sand #maurice sand #french literature #in translation #folklore #rustic legends #spooky #october #carnac stones #six of twelve #les follets #ep-nell

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