BlinkD

The Legend Of The Nain Rouge Explained

The tale of the Nain Rouge was first recorded in Legends of Le Détroit, a collection of stories published in 1883. There, the creature is described as "most malignant, if offended, but capable of being appeased by flattery," and an old fortune teller warns Detroit's founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, that he should try to be cool if he runs into the little devil.

Unfortunately, that was apparently too much to ask, and various retellings of the story state that Cadillac, upon inevitably meeting the Nain Rouge, called it names and smacked it with a cane. The Nain Rouge didn't take kindly to this, and got down to the business of messing with Detroit. Sightings of the Nain Rouge have historically been reported before regional calamities – the Detroit Metro Times reports that it was spotted before the 1967 12th Street Riot, and again before a brutal ice storm in 1976.

Today, the Marche du Nain Rouge is celebrated as a yearly tradition, with participants either cheering the beast in the hopes of appeasing it or trying to drive it out with jeers and unkind rhetoric. We're pulling for you, you mob mentality Winchester brothers. Go Red Wings.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB%2BkGptbW1fqbWmecuenp6mlGK8p3nToZxmppGeu26%2Bzq6enmWVrb2trcinnJ1n

Martina Birk

Update: 2024-05-06