I Saw the Wolf

The Thousand-Year-Old Roots of a Beloved Cajun Song

by Jude Theriot

Little Red Riding Hood Meets the Wolf—1875 lithograph

You can trace the life of a folk song breath by breath back to its origin. Who first sang it, and in which deep dark forest it was first sung, those things can be impossible to know. What we can be sure of is this: there was always a human voice at the heart of it. And if an old song should happen to find our ears today, it’s only because the song has traveled breath by breath by breath in an unbroken chain across centuries and oceans to get there. It’s almost miraculous when you think about it.

Take the old French folk song J’ai Vu le Loup, for example, which has also been called a nursery rhyme. The title of the song is translated as “I Saw the Wolf,” and this wolf is likely much older than the wolf that makes a grisly appearance in the famous fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood. While many variations of the song exist today, there’s a basic shape that can be traced at least as far back as the 12th century, the so-called High Middle Ages. It might even be a thousand years old.

Across the various interpretations the only element that stays the same is the titular dancing wolf. In the Cajun version of the song, which traces back to Brittany, a cast of characters is seen dancing with the wolf. The wolf is accompanied by a fox, le renard, and a weasel, la belette. The lyric begins, J’ai vu le loup, le renard et la belette. J’ai vu le loup et le renard danser. When the second verse begins, Je les ai vus is sonically similar to J’ai vu le loup and the sounds chime as they twist into their new combinations. The woven words have an almost percussive quality that presses the rhythm forward. Like the best folk songs, there is delight in the mere sounds of the words, and in their playful repetition. And the fiddle and guitar make you want to get up and dance.

French folk song—author unknown

The first time I heard the song was when Adeline Miller and Amelia Powell of the band Amis du Teche performed it on the banks of Bayou Teche as part of St. Martin Parish Tourism’s musician spotlight series earlier this year. I didn’t know it at the time, but Powell’s mother, Christine Balfa, had recorded the song in 1996 on the Deux Voyages album she recorded with Balfa Toujours, nor did I know that her grandfather, Dewey Balfa, had also recorded the song with his brothers in 1976 on the album J’ai Vu le Loup, Le Renard et La Belette. I encourage you to stream the songs. You’ll notice that the tempo varies from one recording to the other. You’ll also notice that the instrumental colors vary, with the Balfa Brothers recording featuring harmonies whose pungency eerily hearkens back to an earlier musical age. A man and a woman sing harmony, or two men, or two women, but the songs are essentially the same.

Like precious family heirlooms, songs gets handed down from generation to generation. They’re less visible than photographs and harder to hold than diamond rings, but because they need air to breathe, songs are more alive than those material things. It’s life itself being handed down. Songs survive by being sung, and when we come together to hear the music that reaches deep into our shared roots, when we create an audience and a space for those songs to be transmitted, we keep the unbroken chain alive and flowing forward into the future, so that those songs might go on living long after we’ve come and gone.

This is the driving idea behind the Live from Duchamp Opera House concert series, which kicks off next week. Co-sponsored by myself and the St. Martinville Chamber of Commerce, the purpose of the series is to cultivate a space in St. Martin Parish where those musical traditions might continue to flourish. And what better band to kick things off with than Amis du Teche?

The band, featuring Cajun French Music Association 2024 vocalist of the year Adeline Miller on fiddle and vocals, Amelia Powell on guitar and vocals, and Robert Miller on bass, will be performing a mix of traditional Cajun music and original compositions at a family-friendly concert at Duchamp Opera House on Sunday, October 6 from 2:30-4:00. Doors open at 2:00. Cash bar will be available, and Cameron Fontenot will be playing fiddle for pre-show entertainment. Digital tickets can be purchased at Eventbrite: Live from Duchamp Opera House. You can also purchase a paper ticket (which you will be able to pick up the ticket on the day of the show at the venue) by texting Jude at (337) 486-4743. If you can’t make the show in person, the concert will be recorded for broadcast at a later date. Stay tuned.