The “wakes,” or evening parties, which are still the custom in most of the French provinces, and which are of very ancient origin, formed important events in the private lives of the peasants.  It was at these that the strange legends and vulgar superstitions, which so long fed the minds of the ignorant classes, were mostly created and propagated.  It was there that those extraordinary and terrible fairy tales were related, as well as those of magicians, witches, spirits, &c.  It was there that the matrons, whose great age justified their experience, insisted on proving, by absurd tales, that they knew all the marvellous secrets for causing happiness or for curing sickness.  Consequently, in those days the most enlightened rustic never for a moment doubted the truth of witchcraft.

In fact, one of the first efforts at printing was applied to reproducing the most ridiculous stories under the title of the “Evangile des Conuilles ou Quenouilles,” and which had been previously circulated in manuscript, and had obtained implicit belief.  The author of this remarkable collection asserts that the matrons in his neighbourhood had deputed him to put together in writing the sayings suitable for all conditions of rural life which were believed in by them and were announced at the wakes.  The absurdities and childish follies which he has dared to register under their dictation are almost incredible.

The “Evangile des Quenouilles,” which was as much believed in as Holy Writ, tells us, amongst other secrets which it contains for the advantage of the reader, that a girl wishing to know the Christian name of her future husband, has but to stretch the first thread she spins in the morning across the doorway; and that the first man who passes and touches the thread will necessarily have the same name as the man she is destined to marry.

Another of the stories in this book was, that if a woman, on leaving off work on Saturday night, left her distaff loaded, she might be sure that the thread she would obtain from it during the following week would only produce linen of bad quality, which could not be bleached; this was considered to be proved by the fact that the Germans wore dark-brown coloured shirts, and it was known that the women never unloaded their distaffs from Saturday to Monday.

Should a woman enter a cow-house to milk her cows without saying “God and St. Bridget bless you!” she was thought to run the risk of the cows kicking and breaking the milk-pail and spilling the milk.

[Illustration:  Fig. 69.—­Village Feast.—­Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the “Sandrin ou Verd Galant,” facetious Work of the End of the Sixteenth Century (edition of 1609).]