Details
Author
Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel
Publishers
Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1987.
Size
222 p. Cloth with dust jacket.
Binding description
Cloth with dust jacket.
Description
Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Schutzumschlag berieben, minimale Randl�ren, sonst gut und sauber / dust jacket rubbed, minimal edgewear, otherwise good and clean. - The starting-point of this new book by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie is a forgotten narrative poem, Francouneto, written by the regional poet Jacques Jasmin and published simultaneously in Occitan and French between 1840 and 1842. Francouneto, the heroine of the poem, is a village witch, whose presence brings destruction and infertility. Jasmin, wigmaker, hairdresser, poet of the poor, collected his story from oral tradition and placed it in the sixteenth century. Professor Le Roy Ladurie examines the evidence and demonstrates beyond question that Francouneto was a real person who lived a century later, at the time of the last witchcraft trials in Gascony. The first part of the book is devoted to the nature of black and white magic in popular Occitan tradition and superstition, taking as a basis the cases of two other witches besides Francouneto�s. The second section gives the text of the poem in a prose translation. In the third section Ladurie reveals again his extraordinary gifts as an investigator. He finds the principal characters; he locates Francouneto�s house; finally, in a Postscript, he even identifies the witch herself. Jasmin�s Witch is a tour de force. Part social history, part anthropology, part tale of detection, it is a story of village life written with the vigour and immediacy of Montaillou. / Contents Jasmin, hairdresser-poet, PART ONE Three Gascon witches: Frangouneto, Gerarde Mimale, Marie de Sansarric, PART TWO Francouneto; prose translation of the French version of 1842, PART THREE Frangouneto restored to her century, Postscript, Sources and bibliography, References, Index. ISBN 9780859677066