Myths and legends of the Couserans of yesteryear
As in the blessed time of childhood, the bell announcing recess will ring,
In May, as the saying goes, it will almost be, do what you please,
Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, the mountain bags will be ready to trudge on,
When spring is sunny, nature unfolds all its beauty.
When you look at the mountains and hills surrounding Saint-Girons,
One thinks of the soft frieze of the springs and the crossing of the rivulets of the surroundings,
Gurgling under the foliage of wild blackthorns with sharp thorns that will arise,
Mercilessly snagging or tearing our shirts and pants.
The birds are there performing multiple pirouettes with joyful trills accompanied,
The bare mountains unfold in a luxury of light under an immaculate cerulean blue,
One imagines the resounding huts of shepherds with bells, barking and bleating,
Facing the lake, still darkened by the dawn, set in a fairyland of steep rosy walls
But the sky, all feverish with huge clouds, is draped in a storm with a sudden clamor,
The storm thundering the streak of white lightning, the thunder bells rang,
The priest dressed in his sacerdotal vestments carrying a breviary and holy water,
Threw his knife violently towards the clouds and the clouds escaped!
For a long time the storm constituted an agonizing mystery, considered as divine wrath,
The superstitions concerning this phenomenon were anchored in our warlike campaigns,
When the slate-colored clouds of hail hovered over the fields,
The women all dressed in black began to sob, the candles lit.
The meninas are most of the time, from head to toe, all dressed in black,
The bearing of the head is straight and the look severe with the smiles disappeared,
The body is dry, we guess it muscular, "magré" without excessive adiposity,
Tired of a life of hard work causing cruel scoliosis and disabling lower back pain.
On the sly, they recited the prayers in low voices and took out the rosary without brilliance,
They placed near the candle the end of the laurel blessed on Palm Sunday by the prelate,
A real scourge for the mountaineers, the storm completely devastated their crops,
Through these practices, lightning could be tamed, cattle cared for, health restored in unison.
Where the white mountains fall steeply into the blue waters of a tiny lake,
The high, steep-sided valleys set with brilliant peaks in the first light of twilight,
Evoke for the people of Ariège enchanting images in an oasis of serenity,
Where man made his indomitable Pyrenees a refuge of the civilized mountain terroir.
Ah! These beautiful mountains that have seen so many civilizations of fellows pass by!
Faced with these immensities, these formidable steep slopes, imagine the fear of mountaineers,
Their feelings of helplessness before this hostile and merciless nature,
The elegance of the haughty peaks mattered little to them, so much to their resigned living conditions.
For them, nature plunged into the depths of myths and legends of disturbing places,
The shape of a rock gave rise to rites, legends from the dawn of time,
These customs accompanied them throughout their lives reconciling the dark forces,
It was necessary to confront the elements including religions and superstitions of posture.
Between May and June, the ginestes feature flowering broom plants with the smell of honey,
In vast areas of yellow color unfolding on the sunny sides,
Very close the bees concentrated to forage the precious nectar, buzz in heart
And when they return to the hive, their body is all yellowed by the deposit of creative pollen
In Ariège when these golden yellow flowers were blooming on the moors and hillsides in haymaking,
At a time when the spring storm rumbled furiously, Granny confined us to the house,
The candles blessed by the priest burning around us, she evoked these shrubs thus,
« Las gestos que son en flou, la miséro ques en païs » !
These plants with such shimmering colors, colonizing wastelands with abandoned crops,
Provided the household with brooms and brushes and nourished the mountain imagination,
By this saying in a dramatic tone, "the broom is in bloom, misery is in the country",
Even if they also made it possible to collect the ashes scattered around the destitute hearth.
The flowering of the broom heralded the arrival of the famous Pyrenean springs,
Marked by heavy snowfall and fearsome Siberian cold snaps,
They delayed the harvest and confined ruminant domestic animals to the barn,
The reserves of the mountaineers, painfully accumulated, were dwindling dangerously.
The men condemned to frenzied work in the summer in anticipation of these long winter months,
Chopped wood up there in the forest and gathered large quantities of various fodder,
Preparing everything that will be essential during these long months when we have to stay at home,
The most daring, temporarily expatriated to suppress useless mouths, without faith.
Cut off from the world during its long snowy weeks, easy-to-store foods,
Cheeses, cold meats, confits, of great nutritional value, were then very useful,
Animals confined to barns consumed hay stored in attics,
This fear of scarcity, the memory of men in the dawning good days has marked.
Quatrains inspired by texts
by Jean-Joseph PEYRONN
On the Cominac side, the peasant wore his “feych” or “garbot” made up of several “tortos”
Bundles of hay made with arms and knees resting on two ropes, prestos,
Each string had its wooden ring to slide while tightening, "éra traségo",
The bearer made a hollow in the middle of the bundle to lodge his desperado head there,
Like a rugby prop entering the scrum aided by another lifting the burden,
Mounted the meadow, climbed the ladder and overturned his cargo in the hayloft, "éra Clédo".
On the Cominac side, the peasant wore his “feych” or “garbot” made up of several “tortos”
Bundles of hay made with arms and knees resting on two ropes, prestos,
Each string had its wooden ring to slide while tightening, "éra traségo",
The bearer made a hollow in the middle of the bundle to lodge his desperado head there,
Like a rugby prop entering the scrum aided by another lifting the burden,
Mounted the meadow, climbed the ladder and overturned his cargo in the hayloft, "éra Clédo".
Rhymed poetry inspired by a text
by Robert Benazet the Ariègeois of Mazères
Guy Pujol Says l’ARIÉ…..JOIE