Our rough translation of the Legend of Gonfaron's Flying Donkey is:
In 1645, on the day of the Saint-Quinis festival, a procession approached the village, and the villagers were asked to clear the way in front of their houses so the statue could be carried past, though the narrow streets.
One villager of bad character refused, declaring that, if the Saint wanted to pass, he had only to fly over.
Some time later, that same villager climbed to the top of the hill with his donkey. The donkey slipped on the loose ground and fell, along with its master, all the way down to the bottom of the ravine. The villagers, seeing the accident as the Saint's vengence, wrote 'Saint-Quinis punished him, the donkey flew.'
From that the town gained the motto: Gonfaron, the land where donkeys fly!
It does seem to us that the donkey didn't so much fly as fall, and considering that an âne is really an ass, the bad-character villager really came down the hill on his ass rather than flying. But all that is nit-picking. It's still a great legend.
The original version is:
En 1645, le jour de la fête de Saint-Quinis, on fit à travers le pays une procession et on invita les habitants à nettoyer le devant de leur porte afin de laisser passer la statue et son cortège dans les rue étroites.
Un gonfaronnais de mauvais caractère déclara qu'il ne nettoierait pas et que si le Saint voulait passer il n'avait qu'à voler au-dessus.
Quelque temps après, il grimpa au sommet de la colline, sur son âne. L'âne glissa sur la roubine et dégringola avec son maître jusqu'au fond du ravin. Les gonfaronnais virent dans cet accident une vengeance du Saint et s'écrièrent 'Saint-Quinis l'a puni, l'âne a volé'.
Et de là est né le dicton : Gonfaron le pays où les ânes volent!
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