TRÉMEUR OR THE HEADLESS MAN
The devil's daughter.
The fact remains that an hour later, Trémeur returned to the forest, towards the place where he had left the red man. The young lady, being too weak to walk, let herself be carried by Trémeur, which didn't really help, seeing as she clung to her poor neck and she was devilishly pretty. Trémeur tried hard; impossible to find the old father. He was sweating profusely; the sun was shining through the foliage in places. He soon noticed with fear that the butter was beginning to flow onto his chest, and despite herself placed the young girl on the ground...
“You’re not going to abandon me, at least?” said the beauty while whimpering.
"What can I do?" replied Trémeur, quite worried. "I saved you, my beautiful lady, to return you to your father. Where is he? Tell me. I will take you anywhere..., if the weather is cloudy."
“It’s useless,” replied the woman, "My father will no longer welcome me into his home because a Christian carried me in his arms. I'm lost! Ah! ah! ah!…"
And then tears, do you want some? here are more.
The good Trémeur, in this terrible situation, experienced, as they say, a proud sweat. So much so that the butter melted and melted more and more. This is going badly! After a few more minutes, his head, which was already shaking, would slip from his shoulders...
Fortunately, he remembered that Saint Herbot had told him to make the sign of the cross when he saw himself in bad luck. Having therefore made his very appropriate sign of the cross, he suddenly felt a sort of shiver; the glue stopped melting, and in the place where the young girl had been sitting, he no longer saw anything, nothing at all except the smoking and scorched grass... He understood that the devil was down there and swore more and more that from now on he would no longer be caught getting involved in affairs involving a girl, wife, or widow.
After such an affair - and you will agree that it had been hot for him - Trémeur must have been furiously thirsty. Seeing the overcast and stormy weather, he ventured to leave the forest. It didn't take long for heavy rain to fall, and our comrade, who had forgotten his parasol, was soon soaked to the skin. However, he continued his journey and finally saw a house, a chapel with a mistletoe sign, as was already the fashion at that time. The sight of this sign of misfortune further increased his thirst, so much so that the traveler approached the door of this tavern without mistrust.
Then he noticed that a woman was sitting at the counter, on which one could see glasses, pints, pitchers of wine and cider lined up; and all this was very tempting for such a thirsty man. But, at the sight of a woman, he drew back with a sigh, and, steadying his poor head which had trembled, he was about to set off again, when he was touched on the shoulder.
"Well! Friend", said a man, a little red, but friendly, "do we pass in front of the Bacchus store without saying hello? Old Proserpina, my wife, whom you see there, nevertheless pays a good measure to the practices, although she is a hundred years old, hey! Hey! Hey!"
Hearing about a hundred years, Trémeur felt reassured, the unfortunate man! He didn't know that there are old people who are smarter than young people. So he returned and entered the cabaret.
He should have been as wary of the cabaret as he was of women, young or old; but the thirst, the terrible thirst, the rain falling, the sight of the pitchers of cider, nothing but the hand to stretch out and two cents to give; ah! a Breton, a real Breton would not be able to hold on to it!
This is going badly!… very badly!…
Source: Trémeur ou l'homme sans tête from the French book Contes et légendes de Basse-Bretagne published in 1891.
Hello, my name is Vincent Celier.
I am writing translations of folk tales that I found in public domain French books, so that people who do not understand French may enjoy them too.
Trémeur escaped from the danger of the devil's daughter at the last minute.
Now, he is in more danger if he drinks wine or cider in a cabaret.
I guess that the friendly man who pushed him to enter the cabaret was another avatar of the devil: he was a little red.
Although it has not snowed for some time in Calgary, the temperature is still low enough that the snow is not melting everywhere.
Yesterday, with Péter, Timi, Adam, and Olivér, we went to a nearby park for sledding on flat sleds.
The parents were doing it with one of their children. Here, Timi is going down with Olivér (who you cannot see).
Each time, they had to climb up with the kids in tow.
Adam even went down alone, for the first time.
And I did it twice too, but there is no picture.
-- Vincent Celier