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P.E.I.’s Acadian group has a wealthy tradition of storytelling which has been handed down from technology to technology.
Regardless of how previous they’re, a number of the tales by no means stop to be haunting.
As a younger man, historian and folklorist Georges Arsenault compiled some such tales for a e-book titled Acadian Legends, Folktales & Songs from Prince Edward Island. The tales, that are drawn from interviews Arsenault did with a number of the finest storytellers within the Island’s Acadian group mix the fantastical with some true info.
A lot of the tales under seem in some model in Arsenault’s e-book.
La Vieille Greenback
Marguerite Greenback was an Acadian lady from Bouctouche, N.B., who settled in Tignish along with her household within the 1830s.
In Bouctouche, her father was a purported sorcerer, and numerous legends surrounded him. One of many tales stated he’d signed over the souls of seven of his descendants to the satan so he might carry out witchcraft.
“Previous Greenback,” as Marguerite was identified on the Island, ended up creating the same popularity to her father. There are tales about how she might flip into animals, and solid curses on folks.
“One story that was informed [to] me by Emmanuel Gaudet from Leoville was that at one level she had a daughter that she wished to marry [to] a neighbour’s son, who was invited to come back over and meet her. However he was not enthusiastic about her,” Arsenault stated.
“The boy’s household had a child and hastily the child turned very sick, they usually did not know what was occurring … At some point the daddy requested his spouse: ‘it would not be the Previous Greenback that threw a curse on him as a result of he does not need to exit along with her daughter?’ In order that they determined to attempt to break the curse, they usually put the child’s shirt within the oven and sort of forgot it.”
The shirt ended up catching fireplace, after which abruptly Previous Greenback’s husband got here in and informed the household that her spouse is dying and her pores and skin was filled with blisters. They took the shirt out of the oven, however it was apparently too late — Previous Greenback was useless.
Arsenault stated in his e-book there are not any information of Greenback’s dying. However across the identical time the child within the story was born, Greenback’s widower re-married, which means she might’ve died a bit earlier than then.
Greenback’s daughter additionally developed a popularity for witchcraft, and there are some legends surrounding her as nicely.
“These are the sorts of issues that individuals go on, and typically it is a manner of explaining that stranger locally, they do not slot in. So if they do not slot in, they should be incorrect,” stated Clary Croft, a folklorist and musician who wrote a e-book about witchcraft within the Maritimes.
Croft’s newest e-book, My Charmed Life in Music, Artwork, and Folklore is an autobiography which, amongst different issues, talks about his work with famend Canadian folklorist Helen Creighton.
Xavier’s treasure
Xavier “Pinquin” Gallant was a sailor who within the early nineteenth century concluded a deal which left him a sum of a number of hundred {dollars}. In 1812, shortly after receiving the cash, Gallant killed his spouse in an obvious match of insanity. Her physique was discovered a couple of days later.
Through the trial for the homicide, Gallant’s son, Fidèle, stated it was the cash that drove his father insane. He testified that his father accused his household of stealing the cash, that he stopped working and that he even stated his canine had put a curse on him.
Gallant was sentenced to be hanged, however he died in jail earlier than the sentence might be carried out.
The grim episode was the primary documented homicide within the Acadian group of P.E.I. Many tales revolving Gallant’s treasure cropped up.
“They thought he had buried it round Miscouche. And for years and years after that man had died, folks tried to search out the treasure they usually by no means have been profitable,” Arsenault stated.
“They believed that if you went within the night time to dig up an previous treasure, you needed to be silent. In case you spoke any phrases, the treasure would sort of disappear. And I’ve heard some tales like that … In a single case, some women and men from round Miscouche thought they’d discovered the treasure, and once they acquired near an enormous rock that was possibly on prime of the treasure, an enormous black canine arrived on the scene they usually thought it was the satan.
“They threw their shovels away they usually ran residence.”
The treasure was by no means discovered.
La Belle Marie
In 1907, the American consul in Charlottetown stated he was given a Mi’kmaq prayer e-book which contained a manuscript telling the story of a witch trial which supposedly occurred within the 1700s.
The manuscript, which students now imagine was a fabrication, tells the story of Marie Grandville, a girl of Basque origin who lived in Port-la-Joye, current day Rocky Level.
“Her mom was a herbalist, and he or she discovered extra medicines from the Miꞌkmaq healers. After which the younger lady fell in love, and sadly for the remainder of the group, the younger man was Miꞌkmaq, so that did not go very nicely,” Croft stated.
“In keeping with the story, there was jealousy with the younger man’s former household [because] he was betrothed to a different younger lady.”
The story says Grandville’s husband was shot useless by an arrow shortly after the wedding. And Marie, who wasn’t welcomed both by the Miꞌkmaq or the settlers, turned a recluse and was all the time seen sporting her wedding ceremony costume.
A priest concluded she had been possessed, and arrested her on expenses of witchcraft.
“The oral historical past says that she was burned on the stake,” Croft stated. “She went to her dying singing, after which the priest that accused her of being a witch lastly confessed on his deathbed that he heard her and he realized it was a tune from heaven and these kinds of issues.
“Fairly often [the legends are] additionally morality tales. In case you are a great lady and comply with the needs of the actual faith that you just have been presupposed to comply with, or a great man, then you can be redeemed in the long run.”
A haunted home
Arsenault stated there are lots of variations of a narrative surrounding a home in an Irish and Acadian fishing village through the Thirties.
Here is one model, as informed by Arsenault himself:
“My mom was raised partly within the fishing village of Miminegash and he or she informed me this story about this household, that they might hear all types of issues in the home, any person coming in, the doorways shutting … they believed that there was a ghost in the home that did all these issues, that it was a little bit lady who had died and that she had been mistreated by her foster mom.
“Ultimately the priest got here and did some prayers or blessed the home, and eventually that racket in the home stopped. However then they began listening to chains and the sound of chains being moved below the home.
“There was numerous tales. My mom would inform these, and it was laborious to imagine. However then I met another folks in that a part of the Island who informed me those self same tales, typically a little bit bit totally different … You attempt to think about if that basically exists, that, you understand, or folks have been imagining them. However I imagine that a few of these issues have been true.”
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