Santo Vitori, a lofty peak east of Aix. It derives its name from the victory gained by Marius over the Teutons, close by. ↩
Juniper, Juniparus phoenicea. ↩
Praying mantes, Orthoptera raptoria. ↩
St. Gent. A young laborer of Monteux, who, at the beginning of the eleventh century, retired to the gorge of Bausset, near Vaucluse, to live as a hermit. His hermitage, and the miraculous fountain he caused to spring, tradition says, by touching the rock with his finger, are objects of many pilgrimages. ↩
Helix hermiculata, Helix exepitum, and Helix algira. ↩
August 15, the fête of Napoleon III. ↩
The Grand Clar, an immense pond in Crau, between Baux and Arles. ↩
“Bouillabaisse,” bouibaisso, a favorite Provençal stew, made of all sorts of fish, and poured, boiling hot, upon pieces of bread. ↩
Lunch, a light meal taken by the reapers about ten in the morning. ↩
Quercus ilex. ↩
Jean Althen, an Arminian adventurer, introduced in 1774 the cultivation of madder into the Comtat Venaissen (department of Vaucluse). In 1850, a statue was erected to him on the rock of Avignon. ↩
The Provence cane, Arundo vulgaris, is very common in this region. Cattle-pens and angling-rods are made of it. ↩
All the world has heard of La Tarasque, a monster who, according to tradition, ravaged the banks of the Rhône, and was destroyed by Ste. Martha. Every year the people of Tarascon celebrate this deliverance by burning the monster in effigy; and, at intervals of time more or less long, the fête is enhanced by various games—such as that of the pike and flag here mentioned, which consists in gracefully waving, throwing to a great height, and then catching with address, a standard with large folds, or a javelin. Lagadigadèu is the ritournello of a popular song ascribed to King Renè, and sung at Tarascon at this fête. The following is the best known couplet:—
“Lagadigadèu!
La Tarasco!
Lagadigadèu!
La Tarasco
De Castèu!
Leisses la passa,
La vièio Masco!
Leisses la passa
Que nai dansa.”
Condamino (Campus Domini) is the name of a certain quarter in Tarascon. ↩
Moureto is the name of the female, Mouret that of the male animal. In this country, beasts of burden are usually named for their color—Mouret, black; Blanquet, white; Brunen, brown; Falet, gray; Baiard, bay; Roubin, light bay. ↩
Durancolo: this name is given to the canals derived from the Durance. ↩
Tartanes, the name of a small trading-craft common in the Mediterranean. ↩
Birds common in Camargue. The Provençal name Cambet designates several birds of the order of the echassiers, chiefly the large red-legged chevalier, Scolopax celidrix, and the small red-legged chevalier, Tringa gambetta. The hern is the Ardea nycticorax of Linnaeus. ↩
The Pancratian maritimus. ↩
Atriplex portulacoides and Phylleria latifolia, a large shrub of the jessamine family. ↩
Campoustello, in the middle ages Campus Stellae, once the capital of Gallicia, in Spain, now a town of thirty thousand inhabitants, with a fine old cathedral, containing the tomb of St. James the Major, patron saint of Spain. ↩
L’Huveaune, a small river that rises in the Sainte Baume mountain (Var), flows past Aubagne, and reaches the sea at Marseilles, near the Prado. A poetical legend ascribes its origin to the tears of Ste. Magdalene. ↩
Sambuco, a mountain to the east of Aix. ↩
Esterel, a mountain and forest in the Var. ↩
Trevaresso, a mountain-chain between the Touloulero and the Durance. ↩
It has been seen, in the relation of the holy Maries, that the bark of the proscribed saints was cast upon the extremity of the isle of Camargue. These first apostles to the Gauls ascended the Rhône to Arles, and then dispersed over the South. It is even held that Joseph of Arimathea proceeded as far as England. Such is the Arlesian tradition. That of Baux continues the Odyssey of the holy women. It states that they went and preached the faith in the Alpines; and, to eternalize the memory of their doctrine, they miraculously carved their effigies on a rock. On the eastern side of Baux this mysterious and antique monument may still be seen. It is an enormous upright block, detached, and standing over the brink of a precipice. Upon its eastern side are sculptured three colossal faces, which are objects of veneration to all the people of the region. ↩
Colophon
Mirèio
was published in 1859 by
Frédéric Mistral.
It was translated from Occitan in 1890 by
Harriet Waters Preston.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Weijia Cheng,
and is based on a transcription produced in 2017 by
Chuck Greif, ellinora, Bryan Ness, and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from
various sources.
The cover page is adapted from
The Olive Orchard,
a painting completed in 1889 by
Vincent van Gogh.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
typefaces created in 2014 and 2009 by
The League of Moveable Type.
The first edition of this ebook was released on
January 20, 2023, 12:05 a.m.
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