BLESSING OF THE FIELDS

BLESSING OF THE FIELDS

In the case of a caterpillar invasion, the parish priest would lead a procession, blessing the four courners of the parsih. Martin Côté, born in Petite Côte in 1904, remembers taking part in such a procession at the beginning of the 20th century.

I was a little boy, and we had a buggy with two seats. And my dad had broken in a young mare. We were in the procession around the parish. There were caterpillars in the oats, so Father Loiselle had organized a parade all around the parish. He was blessing the fields. Everybody in buggys with horses. And they made a procession. They had gone down the Second (Concession), after that, on the corner of the Second, where Maurice Grondin lives, there... they blessed the four corners. After that, I think they went up the Fourth. And when they got to the corner of the Fourth, over there, the little mare was tired, she got out of her harness. So we went back home. But they say that when Fardine Bézaire got back home — he lived on the Second — he went to see his oat field, and the caterpillars were all rolling... they all rolled into the creek, and we never saw them since.