“We believed in those days in things which they laugh at now, but which all the same were seen by people I myself know, people whose word was to be trusted. There was my Aunt Mïan, wife of the basket-maker whose grandsons live at the Clos de Pain-Perdu; one day when she was picking up sticks, she saw all at once a fine white hen. It seemed quite tame, but when my Aunt put out her hand gently the hen eluded her, and commenced pecking in the grass a little way off. Very cautiously again Aunt Mïan approached the hen, who seemed to desire to be caught. But directly my aunt thought she had got her, off she was--the aunt following, more and more determined to catch her. More than an hour she led her a dance, then as the sun went down Mïan took fright and turned home. Lucky for her she did, for had she gone after that white hen all night, the Holy Virgin only knows where the creature would have landed the poor woman! “Folks told, too, of a black horse or mule, some said it was a huge sow, which appeared to the young rakes as they came out of the public-house. One night at Avignon a lot of good-for-nothings on the spree saw a black horse suddenly come out of the Camband Sewer. “‘Oh, look!’ says one of them, ‘here’s a fine horse, blest if I don’t mount him,’ and the horse let him get on quietly enough. “‘Why there’s room for me, too,’ says another, and up he got. “‘And me, too,’ says a third. He jumped up also, and as one by one they mounted, that horse’s back became longer and longer, till, if you’ll believe it, there were a dozen of those young fools on this same horse! Then a thirteenth cries out: “‘Lord--Holy Virgin and sainted Joseph, I believe there’s room for another’! But at these words the beast vanished, and our twelve riders found themselves on their feet looking sheepish enough, I can tell you. Lucky for them that the last one had pronounced the names of the saints, for otherwise that evil beast would have carried them straight to the devil.