One thing that may help you understand a thing about “religious folklore”
One thing people seem to have trouble understanding when it comes to European folklore and legends is its link to the Christian religion, and the difference between what I would call the Christian religion and Christian folklore.
When Christianity came into the numerous countrysides and other superstitious places of Europe, as you all know, it tried to blend in, and to erase the local folklore and legends in a way or another. Most people however just know of the “eradication” side. Aka : claim fairies don’t exist. Say that elves and sprites are in fact demons disguised. Take the local gods and claim that they are demons or the devil. Erase every local cult centered around trees, rocks and springs. But people know less that the Church and its believers also worked the other way. Yes, they erased and eradicated a lot of folklore, but they also assimilated a lot of it and shaped it in their own ways.
For example, legends that originally talked about how a fairy blessed a certain person or place became the Virgin Mary performing a miracle. Where people used to say “This bridge or this castle was built in one night by the fair folk”, the Church started to say “It was built in one night, yes, but by the Devil and his demons, and in the end he was beaten by God and his angels and/or a good Christian”. The huldra, from elvish creature coming from who knows where, suddenly became children of Eve cursed by God. Basically, they remade everything by self-inserting their own characters into all of the folk tales.
That’s why usually, in cities, you have the Christian religion, with its canon, its studied texts, its teachings and analysis and debates, and, usually in countryside, you have a Christian folklore, with a lot of weird tales. A folklore in which the Devil has an habit of building churches. A folklore in which the Virgin Mary is quite an active spirit and often kicks the asses of demons. A folklore in which God hangs out with Saint Peter on Earth and gets drunk.
This is why, in France particularly (I honestly don’t know much for the other European countries) you have a discrepancy between religion canon and religious folklore. But the two managed to live perfectly side by side for centuries.
And this religious folklore goes on even today in France.
Les Contes de la Rue Broca, which I’m making posts about, is a perfect continuation of this religious folklore.
If you want another good example of what I consider modern religious folklore: check out “Le Tout Nouveau Testament”, (The Brand New Testament), a 2014 movie in which God is an abusive husband and father (because in there is both God and the Devil-sort-of), and has a daughter that decides to go in the world to help people by making a Brand New Testament (since her older brother, Jesus, made the New Testament). It is quite a funny film, not that religious, and not at all blasphemous,
In fact, to make it more clearer to American people: the weird Christian tales you can hear in France or other part of Europe are often just like how Vodou and Christianity mixed themselves ; or how in Mexico you end up with Santa Muerte (San La Muerte in Paraguay).
Anyway, sorry for the messiness of this post, but it is late here, and I just wanted to share some thoughts and explanations about why we French people have a lot of weird tales about God and the Virgin Mary and angels living in cathedrals.
PS: The story of God getting drunk is really funny. It was like a proto-Adventures of God.
