#joisten

Dauphinois toponymy still bears the mark of these beliefs. Van Gennep only noted two place names : le Puits des Fées (The Fairy Well) near Vienne and la Chambre des Fées (Fairy's Room) near Villard-de-Lans.

C. Joisten, who noted with more care the Dauphinois toponyms relating to fairies, reports in his unpublished file, a Grotte aux Fées (The Fairy Cave) in the commune of Montaud, and a Moulin aux Fées (The Fairy Mill) in the commune of Autrans.

Even if we made an exhaustive list of these Fairies who still haunt the Dauphiné toponymy, we would not have an exact image of the local beliefs in these fantastic beings, because other Fairies hide under other names.

I lived for 30 years in a village in Dauphiné ; two kms from my house, a place called le Champ de la Dame (The Lady's Field). It was explained to me that old stories said there was a Fairy in the bushes. Four kms from my home at the time, passes the Lyon - Grenoble road, it crosses a hillside covered with coppice wood (…) The name of this hillside is la Côte des Filles (The Girls' Hill.)

The Fairies were so familiar to the Dauphinois that they spoke of them with the most ordinary terms, Lady, Girls.

In Lower Normandy, we find the "Bênetchu" who carries off naughty children ; some "anthropomorphic spirits of the waters," who lure them to the bottom of rivers and lakes ; some men or women with a hook, "Marie Crochet" for example (...) There are also many "men with a sack" who carry off children and then devour them. In Spain, (...) the Marimanta is "an old hunchbacked woman (…) carrying a large bag who steals children ; if you find her with a full sack, you have to shake her until she lets go of her victim, who otherwise disappears forever." (Carcía Lorca 2008: p. 135)

Across much of Europe, children were told a tale : "The Child in the Sack," detailing the repeated adventures of a young child struggling with an ogre who tries to catch him and devour him. He manages to escape from the sack three times, because he is clever, avoiding being swallowed up.

Art by Gustaf Tenggren, 1896-1970 This series of excerpts is based on an article that summarizes and condenses the work of P. Sébillot and C. Joisten, two great French folklorists from the beginning of the last century. I will only include the passages that seem to me to be directly or indirectly related to certain ogres, scarecrows, and monsters from my childhood. (Actually, not only from my childhood.)

"Dans un village pas loin d'ici il y avait un petit qui s'appelait Jean. Sa mère lui avait dit parce qu'il ne dormait pas : "Que le diable t'emporte !" Et le petit a disparu, on ne l'a plus revu."

(Arvieux, hameau des Hautes-Alpes, fev 54.)

-

"In a village not far from here there was a little boy named Jean. His mother had said to him because he was not sleeping : “May the devil take you!” And the little one disappeared, we never saw him again."

-

Omens : Many beliefs related to the weather. Its croaking announces the rain (almost everywhere in France.)

In Vosges, to know if it will rain, during a period of drought, a toad is placed in a loaf of bread. The rain will only come when the animal has completely devoured it.

In some regions, the toad portends bad luck. Crossed on the evening of the first three days of a marriage, it predicts the death of one of the spouses or a close relative.

In Vienne, to see a toad or a spider in the same morning, a great loss is to be feared the same day.

Fascination :

The toad has a power of fascination, like the salamander. [But] it does not exercise it on humans and cattle, mainly on weasels and bees. As soon as he looks at them, his victims are magnetized and give themselves up to him.

An author of a 17th century treatise explains that he attracts the weasel which serves as an antidote to him when he has been bitten by a snake.

We have a testimony which specifies his modus operandi : he stares at her fixedly, then delimits a circle around her by jumping ; locked in this limit, she ends up rushing into his mouth.

-

He does the same for the bees by simply standing in front of their hive; and can himself be a victim of fascination, when he is faced with a snake, in particular.

-

Testimonies collected in the surroundings of the "Lac du Bourget", Southern Alps (Savoy) by C.Joisten and his collaborators.

Three wild women, or fairies, lived in a rocky excavation, called the "fairy bottleneck", opposite to the former house of M., in the hamlet of "la Muraille", and overlooking the railway line, 200 m below. (…)

Although being of a higher intelligence than them, the fairies needed the villagers, to live. They went down to get supplies in the small village where they were given bacon, milk, water, vegetables ;...

A fairy, who had been very badly received by an inhabitant of the village, pinched the nose of her little girl who, since then, had a damaged nose. "You could just see two holes, as if a canker had eaten it" . (…)

As a sign of gratitude, the three fairies caused a spring to gush out, it was called the spring of the "Barboillon". It's a spring with a high flow of temperate water (17°C), which, since its capture, has supplied the entire town with water. (…)

They were twelve masked friends for the carnival that night. They only had a few kilometers to go to the next village where the ball was taking place.

Along the way, they counted each other and noticed that they were thirteen of them. Before arriving at R., they passed in front of a wooden cross and there, they were only twelve. A little further, they recounted and they found themselves thirteen. So they each decided to take off their mask, to finally find out who this thirteenth was! But once their masks were removed, they were only the starting twelve. The thirteenth, they never saw him again.

They returned home, but neither they nor their children ever masked themselves again.

--

1.Night -

Are simply named: mother night; the mother of the night; the night mother; mother at night; the mother of the evening ; and probably the dark mother (departments 05, 73, 38). The mother at eight o'clock, a lantern in her hand, passed through the chimneys (73).

There are (also) a few male characters, with the men of the night; the father of the night; the black man; an indefinite being : the morâ. (05, 73, 38)

--

2.The moon -

Children are also prevented from going out at night by threatening them with the man who is supposed to live on the moon : the Armandjin.

(...)  Children were told that if the Armandjin saw them outside, he would come and take them to the moon in a small basket. (...) we explain the fear that some children have from the Armandjin at the full moon by the fact that they have been badly baptized, the priest having forgotten to pronounce one or more orations during their baptism.

At Avançon (05), the devil is in the moon, holding a bundle at the end of his trident, ready to "fire".

--

3.Winter -

The representations of winter intervene to encourage children to help parents save the crops before the first frosts in the last days of autumn (we are in the mountains).

• “When I was little, my father told me that I had to hurry up and pull up the last potatoes because the man in the trunk was coming. I always thought the man in the trunk was the cold. To finish the job, it was often necessary to light a fire in the field. So my father said to us: "You see that we let ourselves be taken by the man from the trunk!"" (05 Cervières).

• "My grandmother, who was from St-Martin, used to tell us at the time of the potato grubbing and the return of the crop: "Hurry up, the Maï man arrive! " She certainly meant winter.” (05; Maï would be the name of a mountain).

• “When towards the end of September we went to dig up the potatoes, my father told us to hurry because the black hound was coming.” (05).

--

4.January -

“Father January, he was the one who made the snow fall. He also scared the children ”. "Grandpa January was a tall, hunchbacked man, already old, with a large hood, a long beard, with a cane as big as a sort of club. He came to strike at night to scare the children (05).

--