Cape Breton Tales

by Harry James Smith

"Now you must know that the feu follet is of all objects whatever in the world the most mysterious. No one knows what it is or when it will come. You might walk across the barrens every night of your life and never encounter it; and again it might come upon you all unawares, not more than ten yards from your own threshold. It is more like a ball of fire than any other mortal thing, now large, now small, and always moving. Usually it is seen first hovering over one of the marshes, feeding on the poison vapors that rise from them at night: it floats there, all low, and like a little luminous cloud, so faint as scarcely to be seen by the eye. And sometimes people can travel straight by it, giving no attention, as if they did not know it was there, but keeping the regard altogether ahead of them on the road, and the feu follet will let them pass without harm.

"But that does not happen often, for there are not many who can keep their wits clear enough to manage it. It brings a sort of dizziness, and one's legs grow weak. And then the feu follet draws itself together into a ball of fire and begins to pursue. It glides over the hills and flies across the marshes, sometimes in circles, sometimes bounding from rock to rock, but all the while stealing a little closer and a little closer, no matter how fast you run away. And finally—bff! like that—it's upon you—and that's the end. Death for a certainty. Not all the medicine in the four parishes can help you.

"Indeed, there are only two things in all the world that can save you from the feu follet once it gets after you. One is, if you are in a state of grace, all your sins confessed; which does not happen often to the inhabitants of Pig Cove, for even at this day Père Galland reproaches them for their neglect. And the other is, if you have a needle with you. So little a thing as a needle is enough, incredible as it may seem; for if you stick the needle upright—like that—in an old stump, the feu follet gets all tangled up in the eye of it. Try as it will, it cannot free itself; and meanwhile you run away, and are safe before it reappears. That is why all the inhabitants of the Cape used to carry a needle stuck somewhere in their garments, to use on such an occasion.

"Well, I must tell you about La Belle Mélanie. That is the name she was known by in all parts, for she was beautiful as a lily flower, and no lily was ever more pure and sweet than she. Mélanie lived with her mother, who was aged almost to helplessness, and she cared for her with all the tenderness imaginable. You may believe that she was much sought after by the young fellows of the Cape—yes, and of Port l'Évêque as well, which used to hold its head in the air in those days; but her mother would hear nothing of her marrying.

"'You are only seventeen,' she said, 'ma Mélanie. I will hear nothing of your marrying, no, not for five years at the least. By that time we shall see.'

"And Mélanie tried to be obedient to all her mother's commands, difficult as they often were for a young girl, who naturally desires a little to amuse herself sometimes. For even had her mother forbidden her to speak alone to the young men of the neighborhood, so fearful was she lest her daughter should think of marriage.

"Eh bien, and so that was how things went for quite a while, and every day Mélanie grew more beautiful. And one Saturday afternoon in November she had been in to Port l'Évêque to make her confession, for she was a pious girl. And when she went to meet her companions in order to return to Pig Cove with them, they said they were not going back that night, for there was to be a dance at the courthouse, and they were going to spend the night with some parents by marriage of theirs. Poor Mélanie! she would have been glad to stay, but alas, her poor mother, aged and helpless, was expecting her, and she dared not disappoint the poor soul.

"So finally one of the young men said he would put her across the harbor, if she did not mind traversing the woods alone; and she said, no, why should she mind? It was still plain daylight. And so he put her across. And she said good-night to him and set off along the solitary road to the Cape, little imagining what an adventure was ahead of her.

"For scarcely had she gone so much as a mile when it had grown almost night, so suddenly at that time of the year does the daylight extinguish itself. The sky had grown dark, dark, and there was a look of storm in it. La Belle Mélanie began to grow uneasy of mind. And she thought then of the feu follet, and put her hand to her bodice to assure herself of her needle. What then! Alas! it was gone, by some accident, whether or not she had lost it on the road or in the church.

"With that Mélanie began to feel a terror creep over her; and this was not lessened, as you may well believe, when, a few minutes later, she perceived a floating thing like a luminous cloud in a marsh some long distance from the road. The night was now all black; scarcely could she perceive the road ahead, always winding there among the hills.