Song: “Le Bouvier/Lo Boier” (Traditional French/Occitan)
Artists: Malicorne, Hans-Andre Stamm
In honor of Halloween, I’ve decided to write about the creepiest song I know: “Le Bouvier/Lo Boier,” a medieval French Cathar hymn that could rank among creepypasta’s best. Whereas most songs today are composed in Brooklyn coffeeshops, “Le Bouvier” (translation: “The Herdsman”) is the last dying gasp of a persecuted religious minority. Deep in the throes of the Albigensian Crusade- a movement ordered by the Church to eliminate hereticism in France- the Cathars, knowing they were doomed, offered up this gorgeous encrypted chant as a gift to their descendants.
The original song is in Occitan, an ancient French language related somewhat to Spain’s Catalan. Called “The Herdsman,” it tells of a medieval French Cathar cattle herder who comes home at the end of the day to find his wife ill by the fire. Roughly translated into English, the lyrics run: “When I die, bury me deep in the cellar. Put my feet against the wall, the head in the tap. And the pilgrims will take the holy water and say, ‘Who died here? It is the poor Joana, who went to paradise, to heaven with his goats.’ ”
Ooooof. That’s some morbid shit. And it only gets worse: “Joana” is a reference to the Cathar church, a movement that held sway in parts of France for generations. This song doesn’t just portray the death of an individual; it sings about the impending demise of an entire religious community. The Cathars knew that their time had come and yet they wrote this piece of music anyway- presumably for the “pilgrims” who would ask about the origins of their “holy water.”
The Cathars were an absolutely fascinating Gnostic movement that thrived in southern France between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. As dualists, they believed in two Gods- one the beneficial father of the New Testament and one the evil creator found in Genesis. They scorned the excesses of the Catholic Church and allowed women to hold high positions of faith.
The style in which Hans-Andre Stamm sings this hymn (ignore the excessive reverb) is closest to which the Cathars may have hummed it themselves. It’s meant as a rhythmic religious chant, which is why the vowels A.E.I.O.U. are included- it has roughly the same meaning as the Buddhist “Om,” an expression of what cannot be articulated by the human mind. Later in the 1970s, French folk band Malicorne turned it into a sort of funereal ballad. Both versions are worth listening to, but Stamm’s is the most historically accurate of the two.
Hey hey! Thanks for visiting- your presence is warmly welcomed. Please correct me if I accidentally got something wrong. If there are any songs, artists, or genres you’d love to learn more about, I’m always down for recommendations! This blog is free to read (and always will be) due to a fair amount of academic traffic, but you can always buy me a coffee (aka put a tip in my jar) if you enjoyed this article.
