A Miscellany of Folklore Tales from Québec
The Warlock
It was back when there were warlocks, and we had a beggar by the name of Lafertaille we called the red beggar because he could cast a spell.
This beggar, one time, happened to be coming back from another house, and there were girls in that house there. One of the girls had a little more mischief in here than the others. She asked him:
-There's a party tonight at Bélanger hill, would you accompany me? He responds:
-Of course, I'll come.
Well, he took his alms and left. Night come, the girl was with her friends, waiting for any dashing young man who'd ask her to dance. The beggar arrives and asks to come dance with her. That's when she started getting shy, right! She didn't want to dance with a beggar. So, the beggar insists, and she doesn't want to. So he says:
-You don't want to dance with me, but you'll dance alright!
So at that moment, the beggar left, well insulted, and casting spells on the house. And all of a sudden, he shows up, and the door opens. A handsome young man arrives, with black gloves and a top hat, and a nice suit and leather shoes. And he goes up to the girl and asked her to dance.
Face to face with this pretty boy, so well-dressed, the girl couldn't think too much and accepted, you know! So they started dancing, dancing. Dance, dance, an hour, two hours, and wouldn't stop.
So then the dashing young man left and went on home, and the girl kept on dancing. They were two, three people, two, three boys on her to stop her dancing. She danced and swung the others into her dance, and they all danced. To stop dancing, they had to let go of her hands or they couldn't stop, and she continued on dancing.
So people started getting scared. So, they went and got the priest, Father Ricard. He was an old priest, an old saint, and he'd done a fair few miracles in his time, right! Even put out the fire in the woods here, a fire started and he stopped it. He showed up with his stole and holy water and he started blessing the girl and the house. And the girl kept dancing anyways. He said: "She'll stop dancing at midnight."
While that was happening, there was a man by the name of Lefebvre who was riding up to St-Cyrille and he was taking that beggar, Lafertaille, he took him in his car. And the beggar he was randomly saying: "She'll die, that strawberry blonde...". Mr. Lefebvre would ask who would die. "Oh! he said, she's a relative of mine." And he would randomly repeat that. Once they got to St-Cyrille, he dropped him off, took care of his business and came back.
On his way back, he rode by the house and he was surprised, that in those time, at that hour, almost midnight, there was still house in the light and that there was so much spirit. So he stopped and was told that a girl was possessed by the devil, that there was a spell and she couldn't stop dancing.
At midnight, he got to thinking about his beggar who said: "She'll die, that strawberry blonde". He was the one who cast the spell. So they said: "Well actually when the beggar left the house he cast a spell and he said she'd dance, alright!"
So at midnight, the girl stopped dancing and three days later, she died from pleurisy. She got so hot dancing, and it was so cold in the days after.
On Sunday, the priest got worked up and started his sermon and cursed the house that had let them dance, and cursed the devil that came into the house. Then he cursed the Bélanger hill that nothing would ever grow there. And since then, there's nothing but rock on that hill, grass never grew.
Translated from French into English from recording #1979-003-01, Société Historique du Centre du Québec, Drumondville.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.
The Horse Belzibul of Baie-du-Febvre
There was this story that talked about the time they built... there was a church, the first one probably. It was hard to get the stone; it was probably the tools that they didn't have. Horses back then weren't trucks like they got today, to carry the stone.
A horse showed up on Cavée road, it's the same name today and the neighbor who owned the next plot over bridled the horse and they used that horse to carry the stone. But they had recommendations that I can't remember if it was the priest or just chatter, I don't know. You can't un-bridle that horse, not for eating, not at the end of the day; you always had to keep that bridle on at all times.
And then, after the stone was done (and that horse was remarkable, always got to mention it. He was extraordinarily strong, he was a gorgeous black, big, tall horse). And then when the stone was done being brought over there, they had sympathy for the horse. He liked him so much, he took the bridle off, (I don't know if he forgot the recommendations), but the horse vanished.
That story was told to me by my ancestors and I read it myself in the book of Baie-du-Febvre.
They even called him more than that, that horse; they named him Belzibul. I don't know what it means in French or in... it was probably Latin, Belzibul, I don't know.
That's what they called him. They thought it was the devil, they said it was the devil.
Translated from recording #1979-001-01, Archives de la Société Historique du Centre du Québec, Drummondville.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.
Milk Turned to Blood
My aunt, Old Bahl, she'd tell us all sorts of things that happened back then, and she was scared easy. She said this one time she goes to milk her cow. Instead of milk, there was nothin' but blood. She said: "I know who cast a spell on me, she said, she'll show up, it won't be long." She knew the house.
The Murpheys didn't live too far. So she starting boiling her milk on the stove. She took a fist of needles an' threw it in the pot when the milk got boiling. She said: "The one who cast that spell will come."
I guess at some point she sees the old Murphey coming, on the path, and she was walking, she was walking fast. When she showed up she said:
-What you got on the stove, she asked, take it off, what you got on the stove, she said, take it off right now take it off right now. She said:
-I'll only take it off when it's time to take it off, she said, don't you worry, I'll find out who cast the spell... She said:
-Take it off, take it off, your cow will be fine, won't nothing be wrong with her.
She was the one who cast the spell. All that kind of stuff, there was plenty of it. But mention it to people nowadays. They'll tell you it's nothing but lies, and that she was a liar too!
Translated from French from Recording 1979-007-01, Archives de la Société Historique du Centre du Québec.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.
The Flying Canoe (La Chasse-Gallerie)
Back in the day, construction guys would leave when the ground froze, in autumn, before it snowed, to build camps up North. They'd spend Winter there, and only came back in time for the log drive in the Spring. They'd be missing theirs come Christmas, those guys.
So the devil would appear and he'd say:
-Make yourself a bark canoe and, on the night of Mass, we'll go down and see 'em.
So on the night of the Midnight Mass, the canoe was well ready; and the devil showed up a quarter to midnight and he said... they had to be four guys with oars like the ones we use to row a little boat. First off he said:
-You sell your soul to the devil and after that you repeat after me: "Acabris, acabros, acabram, make us fly above the tallest hills."
Then, the canoe would start floating up, and it'd fly and go land near the church over there. But by the time they got there, Mass was over and the girls were leaving the church. And they'd pick them up in their arms and go party with them.
And before light broke in the morning, they had to get back in the canoe, it had to be done at night, that. In Winter, of course, during the Holidays. When the Sun started showing, they'd start saying they had to go. They'd get back in their canoe and the devil would come:
-Repeat after me: "Acabris, acabros, acabram, make us fly above the tallest hills."
And then they'd fly for real, he'd say: "Row faster, row faster, it'll be light out before we get to camp. We have to get there at night." And they always got there before dawn.
Translated from French into English from recording # 1979-006-01. Archives de la Société Historique du Centre du Québec.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.
Spells
Oh yes! Beggars were the ones who cast spells mostly. Happened to us one time. When we had no money, during hard times, so that we couldn't give any to the beggars, we would give them matches if they smoked or tobacco or something to eat or something to drink.
This one time a beggar, with a long red beard — looked pretty mean. He said: "I don't want any of that, it's money I need." So we said: "Well, we don't have any..." So he left in a storm and without leaving the property he turned around.
I had little pigs in the pen out back. They were starting to get big. They started going crazy like the beggar was. So my mother-in-law:
-Well, she said, look at the beggar there, look at him and look at the pigs what they're doing. She said, that's a spell the beggar's throwing. And your pigs are going to go crazy as much as that beggar's crazy.
So she told her daughter, my wife did, she said:
-Take all the needles even the needles on your pin cushion; and she said, you, Fernando, get a good fire goin' in the stove so the water gets boiling.
So I put out a pan we made crepes in. And the water was boiling in the tank, so it boiled right away. So she put all the needles in that boiling water and it started to boil, the beggar moved back, and he moved back until he got to our house.
And then, he made a sign of the cross, and the pigs laid down real quiet — he stared. And the beggar left and went quietly. So then I saw that spells could happen, because I saw them at home. She said: "Those old beggars, the mean ones, they throw spells, they do."
Translated from French into English from recording #1979-006-02, Archives de la Société Historique du Centre du Québec.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.
The Loup-Garou
Were-Wolves, that's something else. A man who went dancing for example ('twas forbidden, almost a deadly sin to go dance in those times) or who had another sin it was a punishment he had. The confessor he said: "You're going to have to run for forty days and forty days after you can come back and I'll absolve you of your sins." That's how it worked.
And every night when the fog started lifting, the man would get to running, he'd go to the stable, he'd get up on a pile of manure, he'd get naked, and he'd turn into a wolf. Were-Wolf we called it because the wolf would gallop, so Were-Wolf.
And then to get rid of that, that spell, he had to bleed. So he'd start chasing cars and people, and people would get scared, with good reason. So the coachman often, to deliver a Were-Wolf... a horse-whip, you probably have a good idea what that is! He'd turn it around and with the handle, with the pummel, he'd manage to get the Were-Wolf's nose. The Were-Wolf would start bleeding. As soon as it started bleeding, it was a man standing there. So he'd run back to that pile of manure and get his clothes back on, because it was cold in Winter, and he'd go back to his bed and get to sleep.
And then, the next morning, well, when he woke up, he'd go see the priest. He was freed of the Were-Wolf — his nose bled. And then the priest would absolve him and he would say: "Don't go dancing again."
Translated from French into English from recording #1979-006-01, Archives de la Société Historique du Centre du Québec.
Originally published in French in Contes et Légendes du Centre du Québec, BEAULIEU Christiane, FOURNIER Bernard, LEBLANC Michel.