The Drac of the Rhône
A writer of the 1200s told of invisible beings in the Rhône that lured women into the water with golden rings, and of one woman who spent seven years beneath the river.
What was reported
Around 1210, Gervase of Tilbury, an English scholar living in southern France, wrote of the dracs: water spirits of the Rhône at Beaucaire, who took human form and floated golden cups or rings on the water to tempt people in.
He told of a woman washing clothes who reached for a ring and was pulled under, to nurse a drac's child in a palace beneath the river for seven years. When she came back, she could see the dracs walking unseen among the people of the town, until one of them blinded her for it.
Explanations offered
The drac is part of Provençal folklore, later shown as a dragon, and Beaucaire celebrates it with a festival and a statue. Gervase's account is one of the oldest written fairy stories in Europe.
- When
- Recorded about 1210
- Where
- Beaucaire, on the Rhône, France
- Witnesses
- A medieval chronicler, and Provençal folklore
- Status
- Legend
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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