Bécut

The Bécut is a giant, Cyclops and supposed man-eater food in Gascogne and in the the Pyrenees. The main part of the tales which refer there are localized in Bigorre and Béarn, and often take again the topic of the cyclops Polyphème.

Etymology

The origin of the word bécut is very discussed. Bécuts ( vecuts ) could indicate those which lived , meaning by there that it is about a population which disappeared with new times from Christianity. The most current assumption is that the word means simply equipped with a nozzle ( cease bequin or ceases becut , in Gascon, indicates chick-pea). As a Catalan, the becut is the curlew, bird with long nozzle. There is as advanced the idea as the image of the cyclops with nozzle could have been suggested by the heaumes of the warriors of the Middle Ages. But no tale precisely mentions the presence of this nozzle, which sweeps any attempt at explanation so much is not very functional.

Physical aspect

It is a giant, with a single eye. The version of Bladé says that it measures seven measuring apparatuses , that is to say between twelve and thirteen meters, but it is obvious that this indication does not have an absolute value; others say that it has a head of porc.
It seems a single character sometimes, other times in groups. In Gascogne it is made state of a woman, the Bécude ( Becuda ), and wire of Bécut (title of a tale).

Lifestyle

In accordance with the tradition of the cyclops pastors, Bécut raises herds of bovines or more often of sheep which have the characteristic to have gold horns, which pokes the desire of the inhabitants of the area. Bécut makes hunting for the Christians, whom it makes cook still alive on a grill, and of which it makes generally only one mouthful. As in the traditional tradition, it is often plugged by one of its prisoners with a pin inserted in its eye, and it ends up dying while falling into a deep ravine.

Sources and references

The most representative tale ( Bécut ) is that published by Jean-François Bladé in the popular Contes of Gascogne . The three contributors whom it quotes for this tale are originating in the south of the department of Gers, or the north of the Hautes-Pyrénées, therefore of Pyrenean Piedmont. The tale the son of Bécut remained new until its publication in Gascon ( Lou hilh dou becut ), after the death of Bladé, in Armanac of Gascougno (1959, p. 25-31).
Of the tales of Bécuts was collected in Bigorre and Béarn by other collectors, like J.V. Lalanne.
On finds the same type of tale to the Basque Country, where the cyclops bears the name of Tartaro, and in Spain, in the valley of Baztan.
Dans the Moors of Gascogne, there exist also tales on Bécut, which are Basque alternatives of tales, and where it always does not appear in the traditional shape of cyclops, nor obviously in its mountain context. It is more often brought back to a role of Croque-mitaine. In the commune of Leon, one heard sometimes mysterious detonations, that one allotted to a marine monster called it Bang. Certain people thought on the contrary that this noise was due to Bécut.

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