Gayant

Gayant the giant is the symbol of Douai. Each year for three days at the beginning of July, the Gayant festival takes place. The Gayant family, composed of the giant's wife Marie Cagenon and their three children, Jacquot, Fillon and Binbin, are carried through the city. On Sunday the largest procession starts from the town hall. Gayant is registered with the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity like member of Giants and processional dragons of Belgium and France.

Today the giant family is the result of successive construction/rebuilding sessions ('NR'), restorations ('R') and "disappearances" ('D'). The dates of the first representations were independent from/to each other, the main dates are:

1714 (NR), 1719 (R), 1792 (D), 1801 (NR), 1823 (NR)

Since 1827, the operations of restorations or rebuildings of the whole of the family have been coordinated. The main dates are 1859, 1867, 1874, 1881, 1885, 1892, 1912, 1922, 1947 and 1954. Each year, the mannequins, which are constructed of wicker are cleaned and restored to avoid heavy reworks.

Unlike other cities, Douai did not give a name to its giant, it is simply calling “gayant”, i.e. "giant" in language of Picardy which in use in Douai at the time of the original festival. This absence of a name for the giant poses the question of how best to personify the giant.

According to the local legend [3], at the end of the 9th century, the townsmen of the edge of Scarpe, in fear from the cruel attacks of barbarians, came to ask to the lord of Cantin, Jehan Gelon, to help them if the city were attacked. Gelon, known for his Herculean strength and his kindness, accepted, advising them to take refuge in the tower and to expect him in the event of attack. When the city was besieged by the Normans, Jehan Gelon, accompanied by his three sons, arrived miraculously in the city (explained later by the fact that a tunnel connected the tower to his castle), and undertook the counter-attack. It took great courage and determination to repel the attackers who, while leaving, destroyed his castle and massacred the women there. Jehan and his sons decided to go to war to try to forget the loss of their families. According to legend, Gelon died close to Bavay. The legend has it that the inhabitants of Douai, in remembering of his acts of bravery, made him a giant—the symbol of the city.

An episode of La Belle Hélène de Constantinople, a célébre epic of the 14th century in the prolonged popular success, takes place between Douai and Cantin. Morant helped by an army besieges ineffective the tower of the Giant, the perfidious and heathen vassal situated in Endowed. This tower is bound by an underground passage with Cantin, where sits the giant Maloré, the brother of the giant of Douai. Morant decides to take the tower of Cantin, more vulnerable than the fortress of the Giant. The latter rushes to Cantin to help his brother. But Morant takes bulwarks, kills the Giant and releases Douai and Cantin to the heathen.

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Wikipedia