Audioscript

My name is Georges Arsenault, I live in Charlottetown but I was born in Abram-Village in the Evangeline area. I went to school at the Evangeline Regional High School and then at the University of Moncton where I did a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in history and then I studied at Laval University. Université Laval in Québec City where I did a master’s degree in folklore and since then, I’ve been researching and writing on the history and the traditions of the Acadians of Prince Edward Island and also I have worked in the field of culture and as a broadcaster for Radio Canada. And I’ve written a number of books, most of them have been written, they have all been written in French, but some of them have been translated by Sally Ross; the ones that are available in English are : The Acadians of Prince Edward Island 1720 to 1980. There’s legends folk tales and songs from Prince Edward Island, there’s the guide book, the historical guide book of the Evangeline area and then there’s the most recent books there’s Acadian Christmas traditions and the last one is Acadian Mi-Carême Mask and Merry Making.

Well when we talk about folk tales and legends that’s part of the oral traditions and there was a strong oral tradition in that domain on the island among the Acadians up to the 1940s I believe, most of those traditions have disappeared with the coming of radio, television and all the modern means of entertainment so today the storytellers well they’re not that numerous, you can still find them probably if you search very carefully but unfortunately it’s a tradition that has in my opinion died out. The folk tales and the legends that you find in the Acadian repertoire here on the island is quite similar to those that you will find in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia and in Québec in fact. We find the same themes especially in the folk tales because those are very old stories that were brought over from France from Europe by our ancestors, maybe the legends are a little bit more local because usually a legend deals with a certain village or a certain geographical place or a person so but usually the themes like buried treasures, haunted houses, sorcerers, those things they are themes that you’ll find across Acadia and even across English Canada. Unfortunately the tradition of telling stories and legends in general has died out even before my time but what you find today which survives is the telling of jokes what we call des petits contes in French and these are still being told you know at Bingo at the Legion or whatever, little jokes and some of them we think are recent creations but often they’re very old and were probably told 500 years ago but have been adapted. So that’s the only type of folk tale that has really survived while the older ones you know the stories like Cinderella or things like that, the telling of those stories in evenings of storytelling that has died out yes with the coming of especially radio and TV.
 

Additional Resources:

Cy à Mateur, first acadian astronaut.

Will-o'-the-wisp, Kedgwick, N.B.

Strongmen, Edmundston, N.B.

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