So the legend tells: one cold winter’s day, when the wind was howling and a thick sky hung over the snowy fields, three children ventured out into the blizzard. Wandering in a sea of white, the infants soon lost their way. They cried and begged as they looked up into the sky and the flurries of snowflakes descending. To their great surprise, one of the children saw a light in the distance; it was a window, lit by a fireplace within. It was a house, and there were people inside. The three children approached it gingerly, then knocked at the door, knowing they must enter or perish in the cold. The legend says the door was opened by Pierre Lenoir, a butcher by trade, who agreed to take them in for the night. Ah! A goodly butcher Pierre had once been, but in the cold and unforgiving winter no animals had he to slaughter. As soon as they had come in, Pierre Lenoir took his knife and slew the three children – here now was fine tender flesh to flay and slice. Pierre Lenoir cut their bodies into cubes, and put the pieces into his salt pork barrel. Just then, a bishop named Nicholas came riding by on his donkey. Stopping outside the small house, he knocked at Pierre Lenoir’s door. The butcher did not dare turn away a bishop, and invited Nicholas in for supper.
“You wouldn’t have any salt pork, perchance?” asked Saint Nicholas.
“Lord in heaven, how did you know? Misery, I am discovered! I confess, my lord bishop!” quoth the butcher.
Saint Nicholas opened the palm of his hand and placed three of his fingers on the barrel. The three children were miraculously put back together, and lived. Saint Nicholas then chained the butcher to his donkey, and made him walk alongside him as punishment. The butcher then became Old Man Whipper, whose job was to punish disobedient or naughty children with his violent temper. Dressed in black and wearing a hood with a thick black beard, Pierre Fouettard embodies the contrary of Saint Nicholas, whose beard is white and who wears the colourful clothing of a bishop – with a cross that once was gold, but is now red and white like our modern-day Father Christmas.
Today, Brittany was celebrating the feast of Saint Nicholas. The women were dressed in long robes with white aprons and lace collars and headdresses. They danced proudly in a circle, as held the tradition of Saint Nicholas in Brittany. The men, meanwhile, had donned white shirts, black trousers and jackets. On this day of celebration, the Bretons dressed in the guises of times foregone.
“Have you heard the proverb? Kant bro, kant giz!” cried one woman.
“All Bretons should know the proverb,” a man replied courteously. “’A hundred countries, a hundred guises’. We are Brittany, and Brittany is modernity.”
The women did not tire, and the men danced gaily under the foggy sky. They turned and twirled and were joyful, with the sun still in the sky. The feast of Saint Nicholas was a grand day. In Breton folklore, the Saint was always accompanied by his two “all-seeing” crows and his horse, Sleipnir. The Saint visited houses to bring treats to well-behaved children: dried fruits, apples, cakes, sweets, chocolates and gingerbread. He might also appear with Pierre Lenoir, the great black-hooded figure who would sometimes carry a whip and a sack, and whose job was to threaten to give beating to the children who had been naughty, and sometimes to give them coal or potatoes or onions.
“Kant bro, kant giz!” another woman cried proudly.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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