Comets: Ominous Portents and Promises of Good Wine
Artist’s depiction of a comet heading toward Earth.
1. Passage of the Comet: A Bad Omen?
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, painting from 1887 by Viktor Vasnetsov
In many regions of France and Belgium, the appearance of a comet is associated with great misfortunes. In Limousin, it is said: “The Devil lights his pipe and drops the match.”
In Lower Brittany, it is said that they return every seven years. Yet this return is rarely greeted with joy. In Upper Brittany, in Poitou, and also in Wallonia, comets are seen as harbingers of famine, war, and chaos, scourges often associated with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Bible.
In Ille-et-Vilaine, it is believed that comets foretell a change of power. Their direction indicates the speed of this upheaval:
Tail pointing toward the setting sun ? The change is imminent.
Tail pointing toward the rising sun ? One must wait.
But not all is grim: around Dinan, seeing the comet is a sign of protection. Whoever spots it is said to be shielded from the misfortunes it heralds.
2. Enemies of the trees?
Sunlit vineyard
Comets are also seen as harmful to nature. An old text in Old French recounts that those who travel at night:
“They see them all blazing, falling to the ground shining… And when they come to take them, they find them like ashes, or some rotten leaf from a tree that would be decayed.”
In other words, where a comet falls, it leaves behind only ashes and rotten leaves.
In Gironde, when a vine stock withers along with its leaves, people say: « A star has fallen on it. »
3. Bearer of good news
Glass of wine
But not all regions share this catastrophic view. In some wine-growing regions, notably in Gironde or Limousin, the comet is a sign of celebration. It heralds… a year of good wine!
Thus, a comet year is a blessed year for the vineyards, when the quality of the grapes seems to benefit from this strange celestial sign.
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