Insights: the victims
In The Men [→ part 2 ] victims are individuals just avisés little 'noticed' not suspicious - it seems [1] - the fact that a woman alone and wash your sheets at night, that is unable to twist or wring enough however, in low light and in any case unusual, even for a good drying - for Not to mention the risks they run outside during the night, when you can meet some "being the night ' (At night, among other things, remembers A. Braz, the land belongs to the dead [2] ). The victims did not know then, or do not understand, that the only remedy to save himself from a "washerwoman of the night" is to twist the sheet in the same direction.
It is also clear that prudence means - and not just for a Breton - listen to the advice, the warnings of those who know more, and in this case, look at night, moving as far away from rivers , channels and sinks, "is so carefully avoided in the evening the vicinity of where the laundry is washed regularly." It is true that the laundresses' be their same meeting "to travelers, but it is assumed they do their washing in the vicinity of [3] . The Men
not mention the sex of the victims. But perhaps those Washerwomen tended to turn rather to males alone traveled stretches of road next to the washrooms. This fact must consider two sets of determinants: the situations and motivations of those who were or could afford to turn a night alone in a socio-cultural traditional Breton as that (and more) of the nineteenth century (see the If the same limit Wilherm Postik Souvestre in the details - often similar - circumstances regarding the "victims" of the other stories, and how I will discuss below [→ 9 ª and 10 ª parte ]); the need for a laundress, to ask for help, preferably a male as stronger, especially if alone, as well as the testimony of The Men suggests where the singular is used: the laundress' ends up tired, seeing that his work does not proceed, and let go of his victim. "
Regarding Les Lavandières de nuit, the informant Souvestre focuses largely sull'indole and conduct of Wilherm Postik, contrasting these to the Britons who "do their duty of Christians ", especially in the" black month "November [4] , which brings out the most" moral context " [5] Christian illustrated by the story itself.
Wilherm is not a "true Christian", does not think his loved ones, indeed. The Day of the Dead in fact, instead of letting "the tablecloth on the table and lit the fire," instead of going to church to "pray for the dead" reaches of the country near the inn 'and sailors without religion girls without honor. "
is worthy son of his father, who "had left this world without having received absolution." After the death all in the same year, mother, sister and wife - that the narrator is "warning" sent by God - and after the "public warning" by the priest, instead of changing life ends up completely away from the church and faith .
There is in him no respect or fear for the souls who, on the eve of the dead, at night they fill the streets with a stick hitting the side streets of the shrubs, hedges - attended, as you know, by the spirits - and chooses to go home, just the shortest way, which to avoid. Do not listen to the voices warning that - according to the narrator - was sent to him, with their sounds, the vane the castle, the water of the waterfall, the wind in the branches. Nor is it all breaks down in front of the spectrum - the recognizable - Death. Even with the lingering
laundresses - and behaving as he used to jokingly (maybe) all women - know who has to do, but, fearless and conscious of cunning, makes fun of them, can not be nothing, because he knows the way to avoid being "crushed": just twist the sheet in the same direction. When, however, probably still with "the warm heart of wine ', is seen surrounded by several kannerezed-noz , including his relatives, who yell:" A thousand Woe to those who leave their burn in hell, "and when these echo" many voices ", Wilherm, until shortly before too sure of himself, is seized by terror - what else could happen to a villain, a impudent and wicked man? - And forgets remedy put in place until then.
The situation is different in Le Braz. The victim is a woman who, commendably, does its best to boost the family finances without neglecting the housework. However, despite being aware of the noz- maouezed , nell'insidia Tesal naively falls by one of them, which so benevolent and reassuring words used to win all fear, suspicion and doubt.
release from the danger her husband, much more aware ('plus qu'elle savant "), who knows one spell right.
Again therefore the victim proves misguided, without malice. However, as a partial justification of Fanta, it should be noted that the non-recognized maouès noz looks like another laundry, presumably also overworked, and therefore obliged to draw up the holes in the moonlight: situation, this, probably unique, or at least limited to a few cases (these were born perhaps beliefs on lavandières de nuit?) and precisely to underwear, not a bedroom.
not talking about sheets in fact: they are excluded from this account also the shrouds, and in fact here the circumstances and behavior of "washerwoman of the night" are quite different, as we will specify later [→ 9 ª Part ].
Kerbernès Marianna too, in the story reported by Luzel , is a thrifty housewife: the sale of the wire allows it to increase family income, so, if you show all night, not only because Like spinning. Not not at all want to "take advantage of the good will of a worker as skilled," which demonstrates his guest. But for this
Marianna is even less wise to Fanta and somewhat naive. Do not you realize you have to do with a "laundry lady of the night", although this is an old-looking so singular as to cause a shiver, and wires at the speed of a steam engine. Not the axle any suspicion or earlier, when the unknown - even in the street not long before midnight - with an excuse to look into the house and then to know who is, or after, when the wash could infer intuitively that who washes next to her is, in fact, a "washing de nuit."
Luckily she married a man more aware, thanks to which it manages to escape and prevent the evil of that kind of witch who turns out to be the "laundry" of that story. Marianna learns from that experience - and she should have taught those who have heard his misadventure - that you should stay and work in the evening over a certain time.
In Cadiz the protagonist of the story, Jeannic C. of Brennilis, is another mother of a family forced to wash the laundry on Saturday after sunset, probably because, as Fanta, already occupied during the day in other strenuous activities. The goal is the same: to ensure that your family can wear some decent clothes, clean the next morning - but in fact depicts Jeannic Cadiz while washing "draps et couettes (sheets and blankets).
Jeannic seems to be more aware of Fanta: seriously risked going to the river at night, has apparently committed a serious indiscretion, in the presence of "laundresses" remained silent for fear more than to wisdom (and luckily for him the kannerezed have not addressed any word), but at least he knows that 'the laundresses of the night "- because he recognized, and without much difficulty, since the appearance of the first and their sudden appearance - Must not be disturbed in any way, even getting up, much less running away: the risk of being wrong as clothes.
What then, once committed the imprudence? You can try to remain silent, hoping that sooner or later (before the 'dawn?) Ie kannerezed disappear? Jeannic not make it to resist running away as fast as possible, while knowing that the laundresses Possoni achieve, and without thinking or being aware that his condition puts the mother of many children away from torture inflicted by these creatures.
Who are the victims in the other evidence contained in the catalog compiled by Jean Berthou and pages Paul Sébillot [6] ? It is almost always at least a little wary of people who linger in the evening. In
Elvire de Cerny are men and women who do not avoid the places frequented by lavandières de nuit, the weakened or, worse, the challenges, the cause whistling. Then they have to twist the sheets of "laundresses" (probably the shrouds of these, such as those washed in the 'lavandières "Dinan). But that is not twisting in the same sense, because then the victims end up being beaten to death by the ladles of "laundresses" angry, nor can you escape: those who try is reached, and compelled to twist, is crushed in his whole body like a twisted rope.
can also - reportedly the de Cerny - remaining the victim of "laundresses of the night," even those who bring a barge along the canals: the boats are turned tome all'alaggio spins, the drivers and the horses go to the bottom. In
P. Sébillot the protagonist of the first of two stories reported by J. Berthou ( Les Lavandières de Nuit) is a washerwoman for Dinan, "the Paillasse mère", which comes home around one o'clock at night after visiting a woman in labor. Also shows little wiser since passes, at that time, next to the sink Noes Gourdais , where is aimed at a "washerwoman" and helps to collect the laundry, without suspicious - but in a washerwoman's rule we would expect an adequate knowledge of the beliefs premises and a consequent behavior.
In the second story (The Lavandière des Noes Gourdais ) is a home to meet the same day early morning to wash a "laveuse de l'autre monde," as he calls P. Sébillot. Once again we are dealing with a woman who is forced for lack of time to wash the linen in inconvenient hours - in this case before the dawn.
Both misadventures end, if you can say so, with a happy ending 'the laundress, "who remains silent and turning his head to see is dead, does not chase the two women, it makes them no evil acts, in fact, very different - the difference should be highlighted - 'bad genes, sworn enemies of mankind ", what are the" lavandières de nuit "described by de Cerny, in whose ranks also included the author no doubt that those washed their shroud the walls of Dinan, and then a short distance from the Noes Gourdais [7] . In
Erwan Berthou the victims are those who disturb the kannerezed passing next to them, because they do not remain in perfect silence, because of this should help in the throwing of underwear, and so you end up with arms cakes. The same happens to, in Jules Gros (in Trésor du Breton speaks ), those who help them wring their sheets.
For the present, was the same Jean Leon Berthou to gather in a few traces of the legend of "washerwoman." Some ladies Plourin ("Madame M. .. t ') and Commana (" Mesdames R. .. x') - they're all women remember - recall that when they were children, parents, the prohibition of going to the washroom to play, frightened by the threat of the arrival of "Lavandières de la Nuit" and if so aroused fears of their children, because it was aimed at one purpose: to avoid that happening to their daughters an accident, first of all drowned. The girls
Commana feared, indeed, "were terrified" of being crushed ( broyées ) spectra from those women who apparently - according to Berthou tells us - the locals thought they were the "laundresses of the night." In this case, therefore, if we consider I'imprudenza who does not listen to the advice and the sad consequences, we are facing a "typical" (if any) of the victims kannerezed -noz. What is different however is the age, and this is the situation: it appears that fifty or seventy years ago, at least to Commana, the "laundresses" had now become a kind of bogeyman child, and also how we Berthou says, you may think that their appearance was feared only by girls and even during the day (besides, the substantial risk that, so far as girls, alone, she left home after dark to go play at the wash ?). A
Plourin instead - adds Jean Berthou - tended rather to make fun of women who hurried to the wash at dusk, telling them: "A what goes in the washroom at this time, the Washerwomen of the Night will soon pay a manforte.
What is in fact the meaning of these words? Should we not also be argued here - in this case the intent playful, teasing - that the existence of kannerezed-noz and the risk of being victim to Plourin already at least two generations ago, no one believed that it was not yet child or an old man [8] ?
In the examples recorded by P. Sébillot is found, in essence, four types of "washerwoman."
The first group includes those who do not think they are requested to travelers to harm them (the mothers of infanticide Ille-et-Vilaine, the women who "have violated the Sunday rest", the women who wash a dirty shroud, and the midwife the washing of the castle Plessix-Pillet, the woman in annegatasi Calorguen).
Then there are the "laundresses" whose "appearance presages a death" (mothers who wash the bones of children who die without baptism, near Dinan, in addition to the laundress de intersigne de "l'Étang" ).
The third type is made up of the laundresses' that invite travelers to continue (and those of the bridges at Bécherel Tinténiac, as well as that of the "Noes Doué des Gourdais).
The largest group, instead, includes "laundresses" evil, whose victims are cropping twist the linen and the hands (of the victims cannerez-Nooz ), breaking the limbs (young passers-by around midnight meet their jokes) , wrap around a shroud (evidence on La Roche-Derrien). To these we must add - in addition to the legends of the most important - even, perhaps, the "laundresses" Low Britain whose linen 'contains a baby sometimes, "and of course, is those who have no power over those who took part in a baptism (the woman Landéda), and the laundresses and night along the banks of rivers and canals on the outskirts of Dinan did sink the boat, and the seizure at the bridge Kergoet, whose victim (once again a hole) but is dragged into the water - and also Lavous de nuit, which has no "power on the men who carry with them a blessed object." Finally there are the
do Upper Brittany, sympathetic to humans, which belong to a category of "laundresses" different from the noz- kannerezed themselves. In addition
half the cases (six or seven) recorded by P. Sébillot, which appear in the actual victims - the people whose "laundresses" make or could make a significant impact, not just so much fear - these are mere bystanders or passers (gender not specified, but presumably more men than women), in others they are women and mothers (three cases) and young men (two).
[1] Actually, you should not expect beliefs and folk tales that control the consistency and coherence, that awareness that characterize the literary works such logic, so many reasons may appear out of place, "splitting hairs in four" may be excessive, unnecessary, even taking account of the operation ("gold plating", adjustments and other changes) of collectors, who do not know if at some point have left or deleted any flaws and contradictions. Only if we had more versions and variations, faithfully transcribed, the same story, we could depend on who turns out to be what for us is an inconsistency or a related element, or what should be attributed to the story itself and how the way of telling the storyteller .
However, report, when there are inconsistencies, gaps or contamination and try to understand I do not deformed in itself the essence of folk tales, that core that makes fascinating reading. After all, our goal is to understand and to reach it is necessary to clarify as much as possible each element of a tradition, is what is "irrational" is what is "reasonable" and specifically refers to daily, visible and tangible.
[6] As reported by Paul-Yves Sébillot, it should be mentioned here only the victim of "Bedouin": the girl who proves to be charitable toward what he considers a lost soul, but is hit on the face from the bundle of linen, falling, lost consciousness and gets mad.
[7] J. Berthou (1993): 55, 74. Relatively
Dinan, Elvire de Cerny seems confused, or at least associated, the Iavandières de nuit - which does not consider either "reprobe souls" (damned) or "poor spirits who perform a task '- with Dames Blanches .
[8] J. Berthou (1993): 13.
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