The Handsome Dancer

How then was the Devil dressed?

O, he was in his Sunday's best;

His coat was red, and his breeches were blue,

And there was a hole where his tail came through.

--Robert Southey

To give the Devil his due, he is a flashy dresser--if one can believe the folklore of the Quebec villages along the lower St. Lawrence. Some of the villagers are sure, as their ancestors were before them, that they have met the Devil socially. To them he is le Beau Danseur--the Handsome Dancer.

The legend of the Handsome Dancer, one of the most persistent in Canadian folklore, first got into print in 1837; since then, countless people have passed it along as gospel truth.

They were never actually present, it seemed, when the Handsome Dancer appeared, but they always had the story from a trusted friend who never missed a detail of manners, speech and bizarre costume. The Handsome Dancer has become one of the favorite characters of Ottawa's Dr. Marius Barbeau, the National Museum's famed folklorist.

Rum & Curac,ao. In Dr. Barbeau's records, the most detailed account of the Dancer is that of his supposed appearance at a party given by the Moreau family of L'Islet County on a Saturday night in 1917. The Moreaus were entertaining on their small farm outside Cap Saint-Ignace for their son Pierre, who had been lumbering in the U.S. for three years. After dinner the guests drank deep of rum, curac,ao and whisky, and the fiddler struck up a lively tune. "Let's dance," a guest proposed. Everyone remembered that the village priest had forbidden dancing, but Pierre's father winked at his wife and she laughed and said: "Why not? Pierre does not return home every day."

The party went on merrily until suddenly the dancers heard a horse stomping outside, and a voice shouting "Whoa!" Three knocks came on the door, and in swept a bearded young man with glowing black eyes. He was turned out in marten hat, beaver coat, and moccasins embroidered with porcupine quills and spangled with pearls of all colors. Bowing, he removed coat and hat with a flourish, but kept on his black kid gloves. To the pretty daughter of the house, vivacious Blanche, he bowed and said: "Mademoiselle, you are invited ..."

Sulphur & Holy Water. While some of the guests went outside to see the newcomer's coach, which shone like a mirror and was drawn by a horse with flaming eyes, the stranger danced with Blanche, who trembled as he whispered: "How pretty you are!" Then they passed close to the Moreaus' two-year-old son, who shrieked, "Bru! Bru!" (Burn! Burn!). Seized with a dreadful presentiment, the mother dipped holy water and sprinkled the stranger. The Devil--for it was he--turned hideous, jumped to the ceiling, then ran right through the stone wall and vanished in a sulphurous pall. Outside, where the horse had stood, the snow was melted for 100 yards around.

Last week this hardy perennial among legends was revived and going the rounds again. In southern Quebec, villages buzzed with reports of the Dancer's latest appearance near Routhierville, Que. and Campbellton, N.B. The story was so widely talked about that Canadian Press noted the phenomenon and filed a dispatch from Ottawa on the latest news of the Handsome Dancer. This time, it appeared, he had worn white tie and tails, with white instead of black kid gloves.

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