Jacques hid in the horses' stall, and Paul and Pierre hid just outside, in a row, so that the lutin would have to run in a straight line out the door. That very night Jacques, Paul and Pierre hid inside the barn. "The rest of you will hide inside the barn and do as I've instructed you to do." "When he leaves the barn, he'll have to come this way," said Bernard, for this had been his idea. Together they returned to Jacques' barn, and there, just outside the door, they dug a deep pit. They all wanted to help Jacques, not because they were particularly generous, but because they knew that once a lutin comes to a village or a town, he will invade every barn, stable and farm in sight.Īnd so they came up with a solution. "Remember, the lutin changes shape with ease." "What sort of traps work?" Jacques asked Pierre, Paul and Bernard. He could think of nothing that might stop the trickster, and so he went to discuss the matter with his fellow farmers.
Jacques thought for a while, remembering tales of other farmers who faced the tricks of the lutin. "This must be the work of the lutin," said Jacques, "but I shall stop him from playing his tricks," for no matter that the lutin meant no harm, he was an irritating fellow, and few farmers wanted their horses' tails to be tangled. No one in Quebec had expected the lutin, for no one imagined he could travel across the ocean, but one morning, in early autumn, a farmer named Jacques who lived in Quebec walked out to his barn and discovered that every one of his horses had a braided mane, and a braided tail, too. Now when the French people settled in Canada, they had not planned to bring along the lutin, but the lutin is a trickster, and so it was that before long, he appeared in Canada.
They were his cherished animals, and people always knew when the lutin was about, for his horses would appear with braided manes, and they would often become fat, for the lutin loved to feed his horses. No matter what shape the lutin took, he loved horses. When the lutin lived upon the coastline, he often turned into "le petit homme rouge," the little red man, and sometimes he had a long beard. The lutin could change his shape and appearance, and when he wanted to, he would take human form, and then people called him "le bon garcon," the handsome man, though many say he was not handsome. Long ago, in France, there lived Le Lutin, a mischief maker who appeared everywhere - along the rocky shorelines, in the dark forests, in villages and towns.
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