The Charterhouse of Pipaón

Here is the story of the Charterhouse of Pipaon.

The Charterhouse of Pipaon

Unlike many other witches, it is said that Pipaón was of flesh and bone, in short of human appearance, real as life and had a name and a first name. Although no one really remembers it, it was simply called the chartreuse. In the village, everyone knew that this woman was a witch and, on top of that, in addition to the suspicions they had about her and her activities, she never denied her condition.

Sometimes she even said:
– If you think I have a special gift, any power, I say to myself, it's because I have them, right?

Since the charterhouse knew all the secrets of beds, all the private affairs and gossip of the village before anyone else, her neighbors suspected that she could settle in a place in the house without being seen, transformed God knows what animal.
An event happened one day which confirmed these suspicions.

One night, when a couple was in the kitchen discussing private matters, a black cat appeared prowling the living room. At first, the couple didn't pay much attention to it, thinking it was a stray cat, which had slipped through a half-open door. Then he went to the kitchen, adopting an attitude which seemed suspicious to the spouses to whom it seemed to them that the cat seemed to follow the conversation with great attention and interest outside of all logic, the wife began to detect something abnormal.

Thus, with all the discretion in the world, the wife approached the fire little by little until she caught a red ember. Turning hastily and with the speed of lightning, she threw it at his muzzle. Immediately the animal escaped, meowing in pain. But things did not stop there, the next day, everyone in the village could see with their own eyes that the Charterhouse had burned her mouth. There was no doubt to anyone now and even less to the spouses in question that she was the witch transformed into a cat to spy on the conversations of her neighbors.

But another event took place on another, stranger day.

It was in the middle of winter, and following a day when it snowed regularly, a group of young men from the village, a little tipsy, approached the house of the charterhouse to make fun of her and her daughter because the old had a daughter who turned the heads of more than one of them. The young people began, first to sing in front of the witch's door, then tossed around in mockery and other impertinences. But as the door would not open, they began to knock on it with all the insolence in the world.

The joyful elation instantly vanished from the group. Puffing wildly, a towering bull came out with evil intentions. The young people fled, running like crazy to take refuge in a barn on a nearby meadow where they spent the whole night shivering with fear and cold, having lost all desire to joke.

When the drunkenness wore off, already wide awake, they began to think that it was all just an hallucination, probably produced by the drink. Emboldened, they decided to come out of their hiding place. But no, they hadn't dreamed, like everyone else, they could clearly see his clearly visible traces on the snow during the night run.