NORMAN STORIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 9 August 1933, Page 2

NORMAN STORIES

WHY THE FRENCHMAN LAUGHS

Fetes are being held this year in the old town of Coutances to celebrate the thousand years’ history of the Duchy of Normandy, which attained its settled territorial limits in 933-by the acquisition of the Cotent in and the Avranchin. As there are “Scotch” stories in England, so there are “Norman” stories in France. For the rest of the French nation the Normans are the traditional target of a jocular hostility. Stories, proverbs, and epithets accumulated through the centuries hit. off their characteristics, and particularly their alleged shortcomings. Nobody seriously believes, of course, that the Normans are as “Norman” as they are made out to be. Old tales and proverbs about peoples are nearly always the work of an enemy. The Norman of legend, though not without his points of resemblance to the real Norman, is a caricature. He is a man who never answers “Yes” or “No” to a plain question. He is wily in dealing. You must beware of his apparent humility. His spoken word is not his bond. He is an inveterate litigant who goes to law on the smallest provocation. He is acquisitive, not to say rapacious. Finally, according to his most ancient and most malignant accusers, he is a thief born to be hanged—or was when stealing was a hanging matter. The classic instance of evasiveness in reply to a question is the answer of a Norman farmer who was asked whether the year was a good one for apples: “For a year when there are apples there are no apples; for a year when there are no apples there are. apples.” In this matter the Norman reputation is confirmed by La Fontaine. In the fable of the Lion’s Court the Bear incurs disgrace because he dislikes lhe odour of the royal den, while the Monkey suffers the same fate because he declares he likes the stench, but the Fox triumphantly gets out. of an embarrassing situation by saying that he has a bad cold and cannot smell. Lu Fontaine’s moral is that if you wish to please at Court you must try sometimes to “reply like a. Norman.” Anyone who has ’ had dealings with farmers or business men in Normandy must have encountered this caution in speech. Probably the foundation of it, is a natural reserve, but the suspicion of canny calculation must not be entirely excluded. LOVE OF LITIGATION To this day the Norman has a reputation, not unmerited, for loving legal dispute. A. quarrel with a neighbour about a fence or a family difference over an inhei itance readily finds | its way into the courts. Curious evidence of this is furnished by the large number of tablets in churches bearing some such inscription as “Gratitude for a lew case won.” At

Rayeux seventy years ago victorious I'tigants used to parade the streets carrying blanches of laurel decorated with ribbons. The stories about litigation have a particularly humorous savour. A Norman asked to state his profession replied blandly, "I am a. witness.” The popularity of this “profession” is indicated by an old saying^”when a Norman’s right arm is paralysed there is nothing left for him to do but to die.” (In France a witness taking the oath holds up his right arm.) Another story tells of a Norman who had made some fantastic assertion. “Will you bet on.it?” he was asked. “No,” he replied, “but I will swear to it.” As for the grasping nature of the Norman, the old sayings are . again pointed. “A Norman is born with his lingers crooked.” A lf the Normans do not practise piracy on sea they practise it on land.” Then there is the malicious story of the Norman who prayed not. for .any wealth, but “to be put near somebody who has some.” Perhaps the grain of truth in those charges is the fact that the maligned race has the virtues of prudence, caution, and industry with the determination to “get on." LANDSCAPE AND CHARACTER However much a caricature, the legend is a proof that after seven centuries of absorption in the French nation the Normans have preserved their type. Even physically they have the marks of their origin in spite of innumerable marriages with other races. Travelling in Normandy you may chance any day to see some big, bland man whose contour is unmistakably that of a “Northman.” In manners also there are signs of the inheritance. The peasants speak in the low tones 'which are more characteristic of English conversation than of French. Their reserve is Northern, and perhaps the legend which readily takes it for secretiveness and (tinning is one more instance of lhe mutual misunderstanding of the North and South.

If lhe Normans have maintaino I their character mid tradition one . reason is that since their ancestors I first swept up the Seine they have {always occupied the same region. Exi cept for momentary expansion and contractions tollowing successful or unsuccessful war their frontiers have been firm . It was remarked no more lhaan 20 years ago that the inhabitants of Nonacourt, one of the old frontier towns, might be heard to say “Let us go into France” when they crossed the River Avre. This long occupation has created that kind ol association between people and land which makes it diflicult to think of one apart from the other. Nowhere else in France is there any landscape exactly like that of Normandy. And for those who believe that landscape has an influence in forming the character of peoples it may be remm kod that Normandy lias many resemblances to the South of England.