Lo Rei dels Corbasses - Joan-Francés Bladé

Lo Rei dels Corbasses - Joan-Francés Bladé (book only or book + CD)

(The King of the Crows)

Jean-François Bladé (1827-1900) was one of the best French folklorists, and his Tales of Gascony are among the most beautiful that exist in France. This is the case of Le Roi des Corbeaux, of which this is the beginning:

"I aviá un còp un òme qu'èra verd coma l'èrba e qu'aviá pas qu'un uèlh pel mièg del front. This green soul lived at the entrance of the Arramèr village, in a small old house. Amb el, demoravan sas tres filhas : l'ainada polida coma lo jorn, la capdèta pus polida que l'ainada, la darrièra qu'aviá pas que dètz ans, pus polida que las autras doas.
"Un ser d'ivèrn, l'Òme verd s'èra mes a la fenèstra. The night began to fall and the smoke rose from the river of Gèrs. Tot d'un còp, s'ausiguèt un grand bruch d'alas, e un aucèlu, grand coma un brau et negre coma la suja se venguèt pausar sul peiron de la fenèstra.
"Coac! coac! coac! Soi lo Rei dels Corbasses.
- Rei dels Corbasses, que me vòls?..."

Translation: "Once upon a time there was a man who was as green as grass, and who had only one eye in the middle of his forehead. This green man lived on the edge of the Ramier woods, in an old house. With him lived three daughters: the eldest as beautiful as the day, the youngest more beautiful than the eldest, the last, who was only ten years old, more beautiful than the other two.
"One winter evening, the Green Man stood at his window. It was getting dark and the mist was rising from the river Gers. Suddenly there was a great noise of wings, and a bird, as big as a bull and as black as the hearth, came to perch on the edge of the window.
- Quack, quack, quack! I am the King of Crows.
- King of Crows, what do you want from me?

What does he want? The youngest daughter of the Green Man. And when they're married, she'll have to wait until she's seventeen to find out what her husband looks like as a human... but, too curious, she disobeys on the eve of her seventeenth birthday. The king is now chained to a mountain, and the young queen will have to overcome many trials in her quest for the magic herb that will deliver them from the spell...

If this tale is unique, and still works so well, it is because it was conceived in a singular approach, a work of rewriting traditional oral motifs around a new creation - a specificity of J.F. Bladé, perhaps as much author as collector...

A beautiful album adapted in Occitan Languedoc by Sèrgi Carles, and illustrated by Sophie Vissière.

Available in book version only, or in book with audio CD (the tale is read by Sèrgi Carles), to be discovered by children from 7 years old.

Published by Letras d'òc.