The Griffin of Count Frontenac
Towering over Old Quebec City, the historic birthplace of French Canada, is the Chateau Frontenac, a magnificent hotel built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1893, in the style of the 17th Century chateaus of France’s Loire Valley. This Canadian icon stands on the grave of the Chateau St. Louis, a historic castle constructed in 1694 on the orders of Louis de Buade, Compte de Frontenac, Quebec’s fiery, battle-scarred Governor General, for whom the present hotel was named.
All throughout the establishment, visitors can find memorials to the hotel’s implacable namesake in the form of Frontenac’s coat of arms – a family crest dominated by an unusual heraldic beast. These armorial bearings feature an azure shield emblazoned with three gold talons, surmounted by a crown and flanked by a pair of griffins, the latter being legendary monsters with the upper bodies of eagles and the lower bodies of lions. The raptor feet are supposed to be griffin claws.
In 17th Century New France, the image of the griffin was so strongly associated with Frontenac that the Count’s most trusted agent, explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, gave its name to the second real sailing ship to ply the waters of the Great Lakes, and had a wooden rendering of its fearsome image mounted as its figurehead. The adventurer was often heard to declare that he would “make the griffin fly above the crows,” or help his benefactor triumph over the black-robed Jesuit missionaries of New France, with whom the Governor General vied for power.
The Legend of the Griffin
The griffin is a monster of the Old World – the subject of ancient legend born of Classical Mediterranea and the Middle East. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, in Book VII of his 1st Century encyclopedia Naturalis Historia, described it as “a kind of wild beast with wings… that digs gold out of mines,” which, according to Ancient Greek historians Herodotus and Aristeas, waged perpetual war with a race of one-eyed men from northern Scythia, on the Steppes of Eastern Europe. In Book X of that same magnum opus, the Roman naturalist described the creature as having “ears and a terrible hooked beak,” and designated Ethiopia its country of origin. Tradition had it that the griffin was the mortal enemy of horses, and many artistic interpretations of the monster depict it battling with its equine nemeses.
The legend of the griffin survived in Europe in the Middle Ages, the conception of its subject crystallizing in the form of an eagle-lion hybrid which distinguished it from other bestial raptors like the Anatolian chimera, the winged serpentine goat-lion of Greek mythology; or the cockatrice, the rooster-headed dragon of English myth. It took on a noble aspect in the Christian mind, bearing characteristics of both the regal lion, king of the beasts, and the majestic eagle, monarch of the skies, and subsequently developed an association with Christ and the Catholic Church. It found its way into the ornamentation of churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, and onto the coats of arms of European states, towns, and noble houses.
Deh-oh-niot: The Grim Reaper of the Iroquois
Despite its Old World origins, the legend of the griffin has a stunning yet little-known parallel in the indigenous folklore of the Laurentian North Woods. Long before the Compte de Frontenac had his coat of arms emblazoned on the walls of the Chateau St. Louis, before La Salle’s Le Griffon made its maiden voyage across Lakes Erie, Huron, and Michigan, the Iroquois of Upstate New York told stories about a flying predatory mammal which serves as a dark North American counterpart to the eagle-headed lion of Eurasian lore. In their 1908 book Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois, American historians Harriet Maxwell Converse and Arthur Caswell Parker included an old Seneca Iroquois legend about an ominous blue or ‘sky-coloured’ chimera called a Deh-oh-niot or Ga-sho-dee’to – a sort of aerial Grim Reaper “who haunts the tall tree tops and the high mountain crests.
“With the face of a wolf, the wings of a vulture, the body of a panther, and claws like a hawk,” the historians wrote, “the Deh-oh-niot wanders in the ‘pathway of spirits,’ and is one of the emissaries Death sends to the earth to gather souls.
“The sick fear him, the dying hear him clawing at the door, where he whines like a cat if the spirit is departing, or barks like a wolf if it is not ready to travel.”
The historians went on to describe the creature’s pantherlike tail, which it lashed as it flew, trailing fire in its path. “His death cry may be mistaken for the mewing of the house cat,” they continued, “or the bark of a dog at the door, for only the dying can distinguish between the voices. Therefore, Deh-oh-niot is the dread of each lodge, where he may at any time enter when Death sends him to gather souls.
“To hear the voice of Deh-oh-niot is an evil omen, and some dire calamity will follow those who have listened to it. If Deh-oh-niot appears to a person who is not ill, his death will soon follow.
“While Deh-oh-niot is possessed of the ferocity of the wolf, the stealthiness of the panther, the rapaciousness of the vulture, and the claw weapons of the hawk; all these are necessary in his task of gathering evil spirits for Death.”
The Chimera of Quebec
This obscure Iroquois tradition could be dismissed as the product of native fancy were it not for an astonishing article avowedly published in some issue of the New York Press, which this author could not locate, and re-published in the October 10th, 1892 issue of Savanna, Georgia’s Morning News. This remarkable story, brought to my attention by my friend and fellow researcher, Kevin Guhl, is set in the Quebec forest near the village of Ste. Emelie de l’Energie, which lies 33 kilometres northwest of the city of Joliette, which, in turn, lies on the L’Assomption River about 36 kilometres north of Montreal. Nearly as obscure as the old Seneca legend it evokes, this forgotten event hints at the disturbing possibility that the tale of the Deh-oh-niot might be composed of more fact than fable.
“Montreal, Sept. 27 [1892],” the article began. “A most extraordinary story comes from Joliette today, which, if true, leaves forever buried in the shadowy shade of oblivion the most fantastic sea serpent that ever plowed the briny. It is an account of the killing at the little village of Ste. Emelie de l’Energie of a monster half bird, half beast, whose classification will puzzle the most deeply learned naturalist. While I have not seen the monster in question, the Enquirer correspondent has the story from the mouth of Medard Lassalle, a worthy and reputable farmer of Ste. Emelie de l’Energie, whose son, Joseph Lassalle, captured and killed it, and also from three well known residents of Joliette, where the monster now is being prepared for exhibition to the scientists of McGill University of Montreal.
“The story of the capture of the bird-beast and its description are as follows: For two weeks past, the farmers of Ste. Emelie de l’Energie and neighboring villages have suffered from the depredations of some beast of prey, who nightly visited their sheepfolds and carried off some of the finest lambs. It was generally supposed that a bear was in the neighborhood, and the farmers have been on the alert for the capture of his bearship.
“On Wednesday of last week, Joseph Lassalle, a big young fellow of 25 years, went in search of the supposed bear, armed with a double-barreled rifle. Some five miles back in the woods from the village named, he was startled by hearing a loud croaking cry, and looking upward, he saw, circling high above in the air, an immense creature that he at first took to be a monster eagle.
“The bird, or whatever it was, was rapidly descending, and Lassalle, who is a crack marksman, took careful aim and fired. The monster was struck and badly wounded by the heavy rifle bullet, and, screaming with pain and rage, it came tumbling to the earth. As it landed, he gave it the other barrel of the rifle, and still thinking it was an eagle, rushed on it with his clubbed gun.
“A terrible battle ensued, lasting for several moments; then the victory was with the man, and the monster lay dead at his feet. He had now time for a closer inspection of his game, but the thing presented such an awful and unnatural appearance that he was terror stricken and ran back to the village for help.
“He was accompanied back by his father and four other young farmers. The monster was then carefully examined by the farmers, who described it as follows: It had two great wings measuring fifteen feet from tip to tip. The head, which was fifteen inches in circumference, resembled that of a large monkey. The body was five feet long, and while the back part was covered with big black feathers, the under part was covered with a fur or coarse hair. The feet or claws resembled the legs of a wolf, and under the tail feathers was a long appendage with a tuft at the end that looked like the tail of a calf. Lying with wings extended on the ground, the monster looked as big as a horse, and when weighed was found to turn the scale at 300 pounds. A team had to be sent to bring it back to the village. Then it was seen by Alderie Charland, a councillor of the town of Joliette, who was going through the country purchasing produce. He bought the monster probably for exhibition purposes from the Lassalles, and Friday evening last it was brought by train to his place of business in Joliette, where it is now in process of preparation to prevent decay, after which it will be shipped to this city for scientific examination. Those who claim to have seen the monster say it is the most extraordinary sight they ever witnessed, and it is hardly possible that all the respectable men who tell the story about it can by lying, and, if not, what can the monster be that at present is causing such a sensation in the Joliette district of the province.”
This Quebecois chimera, in physical appearance at least, bears eerie resemblance to the flying portent of Iroquois legend. Its monkey-like head would not be dissimilar to the Deh-oh-niot’s wolf head were the primate referenced a baboon. Its large black wings sharply evoke the vulture wings of the Seneca monster in all but scale. Its lupine legs and furry coat are comparable to the pantherlike body of the Iroquois omen, discounting the latter’s hawklike talons. And its bovine tail is consistent with the pantherlike appendage of the Haudenosaunee Angel of Death. Barring the possibility that the story is a fabrication, the tale from Ste. Emelie de l’Energie gives weight to the notion that there might be more to the legend of the Deh-oh-niot than longhouse myth. Perhaps the heraldic beast of the Chateau Frontenac is not the only griffin to haunt Quebec.
Sources
Count Frontenac and New France (1897), by Francis Parkman Jr.
Books VII and X of Naturalis Historia (1st Century A.D.), by Pliny the Elder
Myths and Legends of the New York State Iroquois (1908), by Harriet Maxwell Converse and Arthur Caswell Parker
“Half Bird, Half Beast: The Remarkable Creature Shot by a Canadian Farmer,” from the October 10th, 1892 issue of the Morning News (Savanna, Georgia)
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