UNCLE GRÉGOIRE

This story was told by Clément Paré in 1946. He was born in Rivière-aux-Canards in 1860. It is part of a collection of legends recorded by Marguerite Deneau and preserved in the Wayne State University Folklore Archives in Detroit. In this story, Clément Paré talks about a well-known character in French-Canadian legends, the lutin - a sort of little elf who lived in the stable with the horses. People blamed the lutin for tiring the horses out by riding them all night and then braiding their mane into little braids.

Collection Marguerite Deneau
Folklore Archives
Walter P. Reuther Library
Wayne State University
Detroit Michigan

UNCLE GRÉGOIRE

One night my Uncle Grégoire Paré left to go to visit one of his friends. It was during the time before Lent when everybody goes out to have a good time. He went out for a little soirée, and got home about three o'clock in the morning. He had taken the harness into the barn. As he opened the barn door, out came a little man dressed all in red about the size of a six-year old child. When he was trying to open the door, he couldn't understand why it was so hard to open. When he did get it open, out came this little thing.

Uncle Grégoire, Brett Jubinville. Little man with a horse.

Uncle Grégoire was holding a lantern and when he went to put the horse he was leading into one of the stalls, he looked at another horse that was there and its mane was put into many little braids very hard to undo!

That is what these little fellows were always trying to do! The little fellow left no trace in the snow.

Uncle Grégoire, Brett Jubinville. Little fellow under the moon.