Walpurgis Night

Tonight we are Walpurgis Night! So Happy Walpurgis Night everyone. This is the lesser known, Germanic, springtime Halloween. I know it mainly through the legend of Faust (Faust and Mephistopheles celebrate a Sabbath on the very night). I blogged about it years ago, when I started Vraie Fiction. I thought I would celebrate it tonight. I didn't know what to upload as a picture, something that looked appropriate. Then I went through some pics dad sent me and saw this picture of the Falls of Val-Jalbert. And I thought it would be ideal.

Why? Because this picture looks eerie and sinister, a bit reminiscent of the old Universal horror movies. Because Val-Jalbert is a ghost town (or ghost village) and well, tonight is a night of ghosts, devils and witches. Okay, it is a far off association, but when I grew up, this is how they "sold" it to the tourists: with ghosts (you could even buy ones at the tourists shop there). And because when my family went there with the neighbouring family one weekend around the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean, it was in May or June, my brothers and our friends (they are twin brothers) read in the evening Dracula's Guest, which is set on Walpurgis Night. Oh boy we had such a fright! You can find an animated adaptation of the story here. So during the day we visited a ghost town, during the evening (in a cottage in Sainte-Hedwidge), after eating a tourtière (true story), we read a horror story and went on a walk in the evening. I did little to celebrate tonight, but I have this memory which I wanted to share.