Esba – Histoires de sorcellerie à Ilonse en Tinée - Pascal Colletta

Esba – Histoires de sorcellerie à Ilonse en Tinée - Pascal Colletta

(Stories of witchcraft) - Nine trilingual news in Provençal, Niçois and French languages by Pascal Colletta.

Preface by Jean-Luc Domenge. Adaptation in occitan from Nice language by Jérémie Marçais. Illustrations by Louis Pastorelli.

Here are stories from the past, where the fireplace exchanged fears, knowledge, lives. These stories all evoke manifestations of witchcraft incarnated by an omniscient, mysterious character called mascho (or masca in Occitan Nice). They are based on interviews by Pascal Colletta with the ancients from Ilonse and are therefore unpublished. As an ethnologist, the objective of the author was, to transcribe them so that they do not vanish into oblivion.

These legends were written as they were recorded, that is to say in gavot (Occitan alpine language) and then translated into French. Jérémie Marçais then gave them a "life" in Nice thus multiplying their cultural and lexical richness. In another field and in order to give a broader horizon to these texts, Louis Pastorelli gave them a graphic extension in which the reader can construct and reinvent his thought.

This work is therefore unique since it proposes for the first time a trilingual reading of these nine news that link the earth's forces, from nature to the cosmos, human forces, from sorcery to medicine, while suggesting to the reader Unavowable beliefs.

Extract :
Le jour se lèvera tôt, le soleil percera haut. Je quitte le col de la Sine et marche dans le matin brumeux. Au-dessus de ma tête des feuilles d’automne s’évanouissent, des feuilles telles des mains d’enfants.

Chaque pas décrit une nostalgie de la terre souillée.

La chapelle Saint-Pons se dresse devant moi, je la devance sans y prêter attention. Je poursuis alors mon rêve sur une terre marneuse, grisâtre. Des volutes m’enveloppent et je distingue difficilement le chemin. Je parviens pourtant au lieu-dit « Lou Balaour ».

C’est ici précisément qu’autrefois se réunissaient sorcières, sorciers et autres créatures pour une improbable célébration des forces de la nature. Je m’assieds, observe l’horizon, uno mascho me rejoint : Esba !

Editions Baie des Anges.