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Making a List, Checking it Twice…
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Have you been naughty? Or nice? Le Père Fouettard makes this question far more important than it might usually seem to American boys and girls and I think he deserves his own post.
Le Père Fouettard (literally, the “Whipping Father”) is a character who accompanies le saint Nicolas on his rounds during la Saint-Nicolas (December 5/6). While le saint Nicolas hands out presents to all the good boys and girls (les enfants sages), le Père Fouettard deals with the brats and rascals. Since you know what his name means I think you can guess how he deals with the children on the “naughty” list. Yikes! Now, aren’t you glad that we just have the Grinch?
Some dictionaries translate le Père Fouettard as “the Bogeyman”. There is no set English translation since he doesn’t really exist in English tradition.
Some important vocabulary:
Sage = well-behaved
Un fouet = a whip
Donner un coup de fouet à qqn = to lash or to whip someone
Fouetter = to whip
Check out the article on le Père Fouettard at the French Wikipedia! (Wikipédia.) I warn you though, that if you read much about the character you will stumble across some pretty gruesome tales. This isn’t Christmas like Grandma told it!
(Image courtesy Wikipedia.)
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