Cathar legends in the Pyrenees

Cathar legends in the Pyrenees

Through these Cathars legends in the Pyrenees, Catharism survived in the valleys of the Pyrenees and Occitania. These fantastic stories show the substrate of Pyrenean psychism. The memory of episodes that could no longer be explained in their reality. By means of symbolic legends were narrated for centuries, until reaching our days. The inquisition prevailed and the catharism disappared, so the story became a legend.

The Cathar sheep against the Roman bear, in Andorra

The sheep, represents the nature and personality of the “good men” (the Cathar).

The bear was an antagonistic symbol. Their strength and ferocity, were considered representatives of the Roman Church.

In Andorra, there was a shepherd who brought his livestock to the stable. The shepherd soon noticed that he was missing sheep. On a full moon night he could see that the thief was a giant bear, but because he was very large he could not kill it. He followed it to its shelter, and the next day he piled firewood before the entrance of the cave, and when the bear arrived, the shepherd burned the firewood, the bear scared by the fate of her little ones, The bear was surprised by the shepherd who struck and killed it.

Until the beginning of the twentieth century, Andorra country authorized to allow anyone who killed a bear to ask for money from house to house. The hunter have had to go with the bear’s skin with all four claws. When the collection was finished, the mayor cuted a claw that hung from the door of the Commune and thus prevented the same skin from being used for a new and fraudulent collection.

The legend of the Valentrè de Cahors bridge in Occitanía.

The second Cathar legends in the Pyrenees said that the builder of this great bridge seeing that for fifty years the construction was not finished. He tired of so much delay. He wanted to make a pact with the devil, pledging to give his soul to him, should he be able to finish the work in a short time.

The devil reached a quick constraction of the Valentrè de Cahors bridge, but then the builder wanted to save his soul.

Therefore the builder was excused itself before the devil not to give the soul to him. Therefore it made a bet,  in which the devil shoulhd went to take water on the “Source of the Cartujos” in order to calm down thirst for his workers, giving him a sieve to do it. Naturally the devil always come back without the water agreed by the builder, losing the bet.

The devil took revenge and every night the devil destroy on the ground the last stone of one of the towers, which was precisely why he was called the “Devil’s Tower” and the workers had no choice but to the bulback it daily, so  the construction of the bridge never did get the end.