The Enchanted Canoe

French-Canadian folklore story, a kind of Wild Hunting story.

The Enchanted canoe (fr. La chasse-galerie, eng. The Bewitched Canoe (Witched Canoe) is a popular French-Canadian folklore story about friends who have made a pact with the devil, who helps them make a fantastic journey through the sky by canoe, a kind of Wild Hunting story.

The most famous literary version of the plot was written by Honore Bogran (the story La Chasse-galerie was published in 1892):

After a drunken party that lasted all New Year's Eve, the lumberjack buddies, who are in a distant forest parking lot, want to visit their friends who stayed at home. The only way to cover the distance of almost 500 kilometers and back in order to get to work in the morning is to use the "enchanted canoe", that is, to make a contract with the devil, and then their canoe will be able to fly through the air to the right place at magical speed. However, travelers should be careful not to mention the Lord or touch churches during the flight. If one of these prohibitions is violated, then the devil will have their souls at his disposal. The characters decide not to touch alcohol anymore, so that there is clarity in their heads. After that, they get into the canoe, cast a spell and take off. They fly over the frozen Gatineau River, many villages, churches and the city of Montreal. The enchanted canoe eventually lands near the house, where the New Year's Eve festivities are in full swing. No one is surprised by the unexpected arrival of guests from afar, they are greeted with open arms, and soon they are dancing and celebrating with everyone. It's time to return, and now they're flying back on a moonless night. However, it turns out that their leader did not keep his promise not to drink anything and therefore manages the boat badly. Flying over Montreal, they almost crash into the top of the church, and soon after, the canoe falls into a deep snowdrift. The drunken leader begins to swear and swear. Travelers are afraid that this will violate the contract and their souls will disappear, tie up their friend, gag him and choose another navigator. Eventually, the canoe crashes into a pine tree, everyone falls out of it and loses consciousness. The next morning, friends find travelers sleeping in the forest and decide that this strange picture is the result of excessive libations the day before. The characters themselves agree not to tell anyone the truth about what happened to them.

In the folk tradition, there are different endings of the legend. 

1. In Honore Bogran's account, the devil is generous and allows the heroes to return without loss. 
2. In other versions, the characters are doomed to fly in a canoe through hell and appear in the sky every New Year's Eve, but in almost all versions, everyone manages to avoid the conditions set by the devil. 
3. According to the version recorded by the Quebec ethnographer Jean-Claude Dupont in La Tuque, the case takes place on the night before Christmas, and the devil himself is among the passengers of the boat and controls it.

The details of the legend also differ depending on the region. In Acadia, a fishing boat appears instead of a canoe. In the lower reaches of the St. Lawrence River, the heroes of the legend traveled on an upside-down carriage or riding a pig. And on the Madeleine Islands, the flight of the canoe was accompanied by terrible screeching, howling and clanking chains. There is an Acadian version where the journey is made riding on a dimensionless axe handle.