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Grande Goule

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wooden sculputure of the Grand’Goule by Jean Gargot (1677)

The Grande Goule[1] or Grande-Goule[2] (Poitevin dialect: Grand'Goule[5][6][a][b][c][7], lit. 'Big Mouth'[10] or 'Big Maw') is a folklore dragon that continues to be celebrated in the Poitou region (city of Poitiers) in France.[11][12]

General description

[edit]

The Grand'Goule is considered to be a local version of the tarasque.[13][14][11][12] (cf. § Parallels for other comparable local versions).

What has been claimed to be an early attestation to the Grande Goule is a charter dated 1466 noting that a "dragon" was among the banners and ensigns being promenaded through the streets of Poitiers for the Rogation days procession.[11][14]

Drawing of Grand'Gueule (sculpture by Gargot, 1677)

A sculpture by cabinetmaker Jean Gargot in 1677, commissioned by the Abbey of Sainte-Croix at Poitiers, has survived into the modern age,[d][11][15] and now housed in the Musée Sainte-Croix, in Poitiers.[15][16] The painted sculpture depicts a dragon with a gaping maw, sharp claws, outspread wings, and a torturously curled lower body, terminating in a three-pronged tail, as described by Bellin de La Liborlière (1846),[e][19] though the tail appears only to be two-pronged like a tailfin of a fish (cf. image right).

A description of the Rogation days procession at Poitiers during pre-Revolutionary (pre-1789) period states that together with the piece of the True Cross and banners, the dragon figure propped on a long baton was paraded through the streets.[21]

During the May Rogation procession, a special round cake called the casse-museau [fr] (lit. 'muzzle-breaker'[f])[g] became an integral part of the festivities. The crowd pelted the parading dragon with these casse-museaux, filling the mouth of the Grand Goule effigy, while the golden pastries and cherries, some barely turning pink, delighted the children.[25][26][27][16] The crowd, especially the women, would genuflect as the effigy passed by, press their palms together, or try to rub their rosaries on the dragon's scales, shouting Boune sainte veurmine ("good holy serpent").[28][16]

Dragon-quelling legends

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According to legend, the monster haunted the cellars of the Abbey of Sainte-Croix at Poitiers, and used to devour the nuns who descended there, until St. Radegund expelled it. She harnessed the power of the piece of the True Cross held by the Abbey, and by making a sign of the cross, drove the monster out of the cellar into the river.[29]

According to an alternate legends, the Grand Goule which lurked in the underground passages of the abbey and fed on nuns had been vanquished by a condemned criminal who won his reprieve in recognition of his dragon-slaying deed,[3] and not by Radegund.[h] However, this criminal may not have lived to enjoy his amnesty, for according to a more detailed telling of the legend, by the time the man finally landed a fatal blow on the dragon, there had ensued such a pitched battle, of almost hand-to-hand combat nature, that his glass mask shattered underneath his visor, exposing him to venomous fumes that was his undoing.[30]

Parallels

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The Grand'Goule is considered to be a local version of the tarasque.[31][12][13] Other parallels given are the aforementioned Grand Gueule of Lyon, the Gargouille of Rouen, and the Graouilli (Graoully) of Metz[32][13] (which also parades through Metz on Rogation days[30][33]), as well as the Grand Dragon of Paris,these comparison having been made by Bellin de La Liborlière (1846) and later by Barbier de Montault (1882) and Clouzot (1897).

Other processional dragons [fr] of religious events that have been compared to the Grand Goule are the Chair-salée of Troyes, the Doudou (Ducasse) of Mons, Belgium, and the dragon of Louvain (Leuven), and the papoires dragons of Amiens.[34]

Eponymy

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In Poitiers, a nightclub (discotheque) called Grand'Goule (est. 1965) had served food and drink to its clientele in a dungeon-like atmosphere,[35][16] The club has announced its permanent closure effective 27 June 2026, after 61 years of operation.[36][i]

A choir named after the dragon has a long history.[38]

See also

[edit]

Explanatory notes

[edit]
  1. ↑ Given as Grand Goule by Merceron,[7] but goule or gueule is a feminine noun.
  2. ↑ Variant spelling of Grand'Gueule is given by Henri Clouzot [fr],[6] though the Grande-Gueule/Grand Gueule spelling may perhaps be reserved for its equivalent in Lyon according Clouzot himself in an earlier piece,[8] as well as other sources.[2][7]
  3. ↑ aka boune sainte Veurmine. Cf. details below.
  4. ↑ Formerly in the keeping of Bibliothèque du Grand Séminaire in Poitiers.
  5. ↑ The dragon is compared to the "monster of Théramène", which figures in Racine's play Phèdre (1677).
  6. ↑ This is a sort of (cheesecake, as discussed by Paul Barbier,[22] who renders casse-museau as "blow in the face".[23]
  7. ↑ A footnote explains the naming of the "snout-breaker" as deriving from the tradition during the Black Procession at Évreux of flinging these flatcakes at the recipients' faces in a "grotesque (silly, prankish)" manner.[24]
  8. ↑ Though it is admitted by Foucart that the Ste. Radegund had founded the abbey that houses a True Cross, and the Grand Goule effigy follows the True Cross relic during the procession.
  9. ↑ In a 2016 incident, an inebriated patron ejected by the club's bouncers subsequently stumbled off a cliff and died, and the parents wanted to hold the club accountable.[37] This is not mentioned as a contributor to the news piece announcing the closure.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Baudouin, Marcel (1916). "Démonstration de l'existence d'un Monument cultuel, du type des Tertres animaux en forme de Serpent et d'origine Nordique, aux Buttes coquillières des Chauds, commune de Saint Michel-en-l'Herm (Vendée)". Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française (in French). 13: 605.
  2. 1 2 Charrière, Georges (1974). "Mythes et réalités sur la plus noble conquête de l'homme et sur son plus perfide ennemi". Revue de l'histoire des religions (in French). 186 (1): 26.
  3. 1 2 Foucart, Émile-Victor (1841). "Poitiers et ses monuments". Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest. Année 1840. 7. Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest (Poitiers, France): 151 and n(3).
  4. ↑ Barbier de Montault (1882), p. 229, n(1).
  5. ↑ É.-V. Foucart (1840/1841): "...connu a Poitiers sous le nom de Grand'Goule ou Grand Gueule";[3] cited by Barbier de Montault (1881/1882): "[Monsieur] Foucart.. donne à la Grand'Gueule son vrai nom Grand'Goule pour se conformer au patois poitevin."[4]
  6. 1 2 3 Clouzot, Henri [in French] (1900). "L'ancien théâtre en Poitou". Mémoires de la Société des antiquaires de l'Ouest (in French). 24: 164–167 and fig. (Also digitized @Gallica, BnF)
  7. 1 2 3 Merceron, Jacques (1997–1998). "Hagiographie facétieuse". Mythologie Française (in French) (186): 23.
  8. 1 2 Clouzot, Henri [in French] (1897). "Grand combat naval". La tradition en Poitou et Charentes : art populaire, ethnographie, folk-lore [sic], hagiographie, histoire : [actes du] congrès de Niort, 1896, [organisé par la] Société d'ethnographie nationale et d'art populaire (in French). Paris: Librarie de la Tradition Nationale. pp. 312–314.
  9. 1 2 3 Edwards, Jennifer C. (2019). Superior Women: Medieval Female Authority in Poitiers' Abbey of Sainte-Croix. OUP Oxford. p. 21. ISBN 9780192574978.
  10. ↑ Edwards (2019) at note 58.[9]
  11. 1 2 3 4 Clouzot (1897)[8] and (1900)[6]
  12. 1 2 3 Wyatt, Zillah (May 1927). "Poitiers". Le Voyageur en France. 5 (5): 2–3.
  13. 1 2 3 Bellin de La Liborlière (1846), p. 200.
  14. 1 2 Barbier de Montault (1882), p. 228.
  15. 1 2 "La Grand'Goule de Poitiers passe au scanner et livre ses secrets". Ministère de la culture (in French). 2 August 2022. Retrieved 2026-08-31.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Rudolph, Anna Katharina (2025). "6. French Exports: Radegund and Defining French Identities at Home and Abroad from Medieval to Modernity". Rewriting History and the Myth of the French Nation: The Hagiography of Radegund of Poitiers from Medieval to Modernity. Taylor & Francis. doi:10.4324/9781003703020-7. ISBN 9781040794647.
  17. 1 2 Bellin de La Liborlière (1846), p. 196.
  18. 1 2 Clouzot (1900), p. 164.
  19. ↑ "en bois sculpté et colorié, représentant un dragon aux ailes éployées, à la gueule béante, aux griffes acérées, à la croupe recourbée en replis tortueux comme celle du monstre de Théramène, et terminée de plus par une longue queue armée d'un dard à trois pointes",[17] repeated near verbatim by Clouzot.[18]
  20. ↑ Bellin de La Liborlière (1846), pp. 130–131, 196.
  21. ↑ Bellin de La Liborlière (1846)[20] also quoted in Barbier de Montault (1882), pp. 233–234
  22. ↑ Barbier, Paul (1933). "Miscellanea Lexicographica X". Proceedings of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, Literary and Historical Section. 3 (2): 131–134.
  23. ↑ Barbier (1933), p. 133.
  24. ↑ Clouzot (1900), p. 163, n(2).
  25. ↑ Bellin de La Liborlière (1846)[17] also quoted in Clouzot (1900), p. 164
  26. ↑ Clouzot (1900), pp. 163–164.
  27. ↑ Jozereau, Roger (1848). "§La Grand'Goule". Pierres en prière, Poitiers (in French). Paris: S.F.I.L. (Société française d'Imprimerie et de Librairie)/Marc Texier réunies. p. PT40. (digital reprint issued by FeniXX réédition numérique, ISBN 9782307326533)
  28. ↑ Bellin de La Liborlière (1846), pp. 196–197.
  29. ↑ Jean Bouchet (1518) L'histoire et cronique de Clotaire.[9]
  30. 1 2 Bellin de La Liborlière (1846), pp. 198–199.
  31. ↑ Clouzot: "cette traraque poitevine?"[18]
  32. ↑ Clouzot (1897), p. 132.
  33. ↑ Barbier de Montault (1882), p. 238.
  34. ↑ Bridaham, Lester Burbank (1930). Gargoyles, Chimères, and the Grotesque in French Gothic Sculpture. New York: Architectural Book Publishing Company, Incorporated. pp. x–xi.
  35. ↑ Edwards (2019): "discotheque opposite the church of Sainte-Radegonde" at note 58.[9]
  36. ↑ Blandin, Bastien (6 May 2026). "«61 années de nuits inoubliables» : la discothèque La Grand'Goule ferme définitivement le 27 juin à Poitiers". La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest (in French).
  37. ↑ Coutard, Charlotte (2016-03-29). "Poitiers : la boîte de nuit est-elle responsable de la mort de leur fils ?" [Poitiers: is the nightclub responsible for the death of their son?]. France Bleu (in French).
  38. ↑ Rédaction (6 April 2016). "La Grand'Goule a l'Opéra en choeur". La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest (in French).

Bibliography

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