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| The "cage" of Corriveau |
THE FAMOUS SCREAMING GHOST! - We don't remember where we were in the city when our guide told us the story of the screaming ghost, other than it was in the Upper Town. It was about a woman named Marie who had married twice and killed both husbands. She was convicted of the murders and she was also branded a witch. In fact, we think she admitted to being a witch.
WHO WAS MARIE?
According to Wikipedia: Marie-Josephte Corriveau (1733 at Saint-Vallier, Quebec – April 18, 1763 at Quebec City), better known as "la Corriveau", is one of the most popular figures in Québécois folklore. She lived in New France, and was sentenced to death by a British court martial for the murder of her second husband, was hanged for it and her body hanged in chains called a "gibbet." Corriveau was exhibited after her execution, the "cage."
THE SCREAMING STARTS -
That's when it got creepy. Residents of old Quebec at the time (1730s) heard screaming coming from her corpse!
Later, the iron cage was rediscovered in 1849 buried in the cemetery of St-Joseph parish (now the Lauzon district). The finding served to reawaken the legends and the fantastic stories, which were amplified and used by 19th-century writers.
Her story has acutally become legendary in Quebec, and she is the subject of numerous books and plays! For more info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie-Josephte_Corriveau
(Photo: La Corriveau's skeleton terrorising a traveller one stormy night. Illustration by Charles Walter Simpson for the Légendes du Saint-Laurent, 1926.)
For more ghost stories about Quebec, we found this website:
https://coldspot.org/category/true-quebec-ghost-stories/
NEXT: A SHADOW GHOST SEEN BY ENGLAND'S QUEEN IN CHURCH
