Usages, Customs, and Superstitions of the Inhabitants of the Black Mountain [pp. 726-731]

1840.] Usages, Customs and Superstitions of the Inhabitants of the Black Mdountain.
all serve, in every place, the host to whom they devote One may easily conceive, that weak minds, upon which
themselves; they introduce themselves into the most hid- the Fassilieres act, would also feel the influence of sorcerden recesses of his house; and they particularly love the ers. In the Black Mountain, they call him Armacies who
stables, where they suck the milk of the cows. is born the day after All-Saints'-Day-and whom they sup The Drac is the drollest and merriest of the Fassilieres; pose to be also gifted with the faculty of second sight. He
he never does any serious harm; and his roguish pranks is the Taishatr of the Scotch. Among this last people,
are entirely those of a scholar or a page. If a hard-working they celebrate, in the night before All-Saints'-Day, a festistable-boy has twisted the hair of a rrmule, the Drac imme- val called Halloween-during which there is, say the bediately tangles what has been done; if one has put hay in lievers, a kind of truce between man and the genii, which
the manger, he scatters it upon the ground, and replaces it affords to the commonest understandings the means of
by dung; if one has saddled the horse upon which he is knowing the future.
about to travel, he malignantly turns the saddle, so that the In the neighborhood of Angles, the sorcerer is called Pary.
crupper encloses the ears, and the bridle tangles the tail. They consult him, especially, to drive away the fox from the
After that he metamorphoses himself into a ribbon, or into farms, which he procures by making conjurations in the four
a skein of thread, to torment the young girls, who cannot corners of the house. The chickens -are then in safety.
accomplish tying that ribbon upon their heads, or make a Nevertheless, the master of the house must be careful not
single stitch without the thread's breaking. He is a terri- to give eggs to people who ask for them, after having killed
ble persecutor, that Mr. Drac! Nevertheless, one may a fox; for, in this event, the conjuration would lose all its
catch him in his turn. Thus, for example, they place a lit- effect.
tle millet on a board in the stable, the demon never fails to The old women play a great part in the sorcery; but
upset that grain, and he always also tries to gather it; but when one finds them in a stable working witchcraft, one
as his hands are bored through like a sieve, he cannot suc- may, with the aid of some blows of a stick, oblige them to
ceed in gathering the millet by the handful, which puts him remedy, themselves, the evil which they have committed.
in such a rage that he flies from the stable and does not re- Thus, when these miserable creatures cause blood to flow
turn thither for a long time. from a cow instead of milk, it is easy, if they are caught in
The Saurimonde is, on the contrary, the model of the the very act, to restore things to their right condition. The
most atrocious perfidy. It appears as a beautiful child, sorceresses are compelled to pronounce some words of their
with white and curling hair, blue eyes and rosy mouth, conjuring book, and immediately little streams of milk are
abandoned beside a fountain, or in the cross-roads of a seen to enter at the door of the stable, which go to resume
wood, calling with a soft voice, and with sobs, for some their place in the cow's belly.
charitable soul to adopt it. A charitable soul! where is it That the sorceresses may remain without power over the
wanting? The human race is so compassionate, enlarged cows, quicksilver should be fastened to the necks of the
hearts are not wanting, especially amongst the shepherds latter, or a toad should be well fattened in a pitcher, which
and sheperdesses. Sometimes it is a brave boy who car- should be kept constantly in the stable.
ries the child under his riding-hood, and goes to place it on One should be very careful not to touch the hand of a dyhis old mother's knees, begging her to bring up this poor or- ing sorcerer, for one would become a sorcerer like him.
phan; at other times it is a worthy young girl, who swears Woe also to the children who are born on the day of a batupon the little cross, which hangs from her neck, that she tle! Their soul will go out of their body, or return, at pleawill never leave the handsome brother which Providence sure. They will torment many persons during sleep; and
has given her. By both is the promise religiously kept. they will finally become sorcerers themselves, under the
The child grows. Then, almost always, it becomes the wife name of Masques.
of the shepherd, who finds himself to have contracted with A sorceress of this kind was one day among reapers,
the devil; or so well he teaches the virgin who has adopted where she slept towards noon. As she had been long sushim, that he alike obliges her to devote her futurity to hell. pected of having correspondence with the devil, they had
The nocturnal phantoms, which the Romans called Le- no doubt that her soul had chosen this moment to go prornemures or Lares, and which the Scotch call at the present nading. To make sure of it, they carried her body a cerday Goblins, are also the subject of a lively fear in the Black tain distance and put a great pitcher in its place. When
Mountain, where they seek to free themselves by a multi- the soul returned from its excursion, it went in fact to take
tude of means from their pretended pursuit. In the canton lodgings in the pitcher-and rolled it about from side to
of Labrugiere for instance, on the eve of the Kings, the in- side, until, drawing near to the body, it established itself
habitants run about the lanes with bells, kettles, and, in in it.
short, with all the utensils which compose the harmony of a What is here remarkable is, that this legend, firmly becharivari; then, by the light of torches and of burning fire- lieved in the Black Mountain, seems also to have been borbrands, they give themselves up to an infernal uproar and rowed from the ancients. Hermotine-a citizen of Clazoto noises of all kinds, hoping by this means to drive away mene-a city of lonia, in Asia Minor-had a soul which
the ghosts and the evil spirits. often separated itself from his body to go and walk in dif This custom is precisely that which the Romans prac- fererit places. One day he ordered his wife not to touch
tised in the Lemuries-festivals which they celebrated on his body when they saw it immovable; but she did not pay
the ninth day of May-and which had for their object the regard to it-she spoke of it to her neighbors, who came forthsame expulsion of the shades and phantoms which appeared with to burn the body: which prevented the soul's returning
by night. This festival lasted three nights, with an interval into it, and compelled it to seek refuge in a vase which it
of one night. Beans were cast upon the fire which burnt rolled hither and thither.
upon the altar; and he who sacrificed, putting at first some BIRTH. —In the commune of Dourgne, they never carry
beans in his mouth, afterwards cast them behind him, say- the new-born to church by the road which they use for the
ing, I free myself and mine. This ceremony was accompa- dead.
nied by a charivari, with frying-pans and other iron vessels, In almost all the Black Mountain they do not cut the
which they beat; praying the hobgoblins to take themselves nails of little children which are still sucking, because they
off, and repeating to them nine tinies that they should go in think that this operation would create in them a decided inpeace, without farther troubling the repose of the living. clination for theft.
During the Lemuries, the temples were shut and no mar- MARIAGE. — The Romans considered the month of May
riage was performed. as an unlucky time for marriage: Malum mense maio nubere.
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