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Where it's at
Make a trip to Douai, in the Nord-Pas de Calais
region of France in early July and you're likely to bump into
a thoroughly ordinarily named couple, Monsieur and Madame
Gayant, who just happen to be over twenty feet tall! They're
the town's 'géants' and part of France's biggest 'giant
festival' that includes about 100 massive effigies of characters
from local legends who are paraded through the streets and
venerated as 'guests of honour' at celebrations all over town.
History of the festival
Part of a Flemish tradition imported from Catholic Spain and
Portugal that's also still celebrated across the border in
Belgium, Douai's giants first appeared in 1530. After a French
defeat, the Spanish rulers of Flanders ordered a new and improved
version of a pageant that had been taking place for 50 years
and the town's guild of basket makers constructed a float
featuring a wickerwork giant called 'gayant' (the Picardy
dialect of the French word 'géant'). A year later the
guild of fruiterers presented him with a wife: Madame Gayant.
Douai became a French town in 1667 and the Bishop of Arras
ordered a new festival to celebrate the French triumph, banning
the giants because he considered them too profane (by now
the characters included devils and dragons). In the following
two centuries the giants appeared again intermittently, only
to be banned when they offended the sensibilities of the prevailing
belief system of a given period; they were banned in 1892
because the French Revolution was an atheist movement that
banned religious events - the giants were also said to portray
the aristocracy!
Following the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the
Bourbon monarchy, the festival was reinstated and has continued
ever since.
What happens at the Douai Festival?
Every year the Gayant couple are joined by their children
Jacqout, Fillon and Binbin, as well as a myriad of other figures
including a 'fool' riding a hobby horse in a parade through
town. Such is the size of many of the wickerwork effigies
that it takes up to six men to carry each one and it's steered
by peering through a flap in the skirt.
The giants are an important tradition in Douai and their
importance means they are almost considered to be real people.
Associations within the town have their own figure to look
after and often one company will invite other giants as their
guests for special processions. Sometimes giant weddings are
staged and when an aging figure is replaced a christening
will take place for its successor.
If you're looking for a souvenir of your visit to the festival,
look no further than Aux Délices, purveyor of
Douai's oldest confectionary speciality, 'Gayantines', named
after the giants who appear on the packaging. The sweets have
a milk-caramel shell and are filled with a soft butter or
caramel paste in a vanilla or chicory flavour. Among other
specialities are 'Les Boulets du Ch'ti', praline-filled chocolates
shaped like pieces of coal in tribute to Douai's coal-mining
past. |
