Note 539 — Chapter XII · THE SACRED MARRIAGE (continued 2)

See F. N. Taillepied, Recueil des Antiquitez et singularitez de la ville de Rouen (Rouen, 1587), pp. 93-105; A. Floquet, Histoire du privilége de Saint Romain (2 vols. 8vo, Rouen, 1833). Briefer notices of the custom and legend will be found in A. Bosquet’s La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse (Paris and Rouen, 1845), pp. 405-409; and A. de Nore’s Coutumes, mythes, et traditions des provinces de France (Paris and Lyons, 1846), pp. 245-250. The gilt fierte, or portable shrine of St. Romain, is preserved in the Chapter Library of the Cathedral at Rouen, where I saw it in May 1902. It is in the form of a chapel, on the roof of which the saint stands erect, trampling on the winged dragon, while the condemned prisoner kneels in front of him. This, however, is not the original shrine, which was so decayed that in 1776 the Chapter decided to replace it by another. See Floquet, op. cit. ii. 338-346. The custom of carrying the dragons in procession was stopped in 1753 because of its tendency to impair the solemnity of the ceremony (Floquet, op. cit. ii. 301). Even more famous than the dragon of Rouen was the dragon of Tarascon, an effigy of which used to be carried in procession on Whitsunday. See A. de Nore, op. cit. pp. 47 sqq. As to other French dragons see P. Sébillot, Le Folk-lore de France, i. (Paris, 1904) pp. 468-470.