Lo strano caso dell’‘orso mannaro’: fantasmi, maschere, metamorfosi

This is a strange story. A story where a man fights with a bear, he kills it but after he will never be the same: every night like a sleepwalker Pierre de Berne, Count’s half-brother, wanders in his room to fight and kill the bear one more time. A story told by Jean Froissart in the third book of his Chroniques, where he speaks about his stay at the court of Gaston Febus in the Orthez castle. But not only Pierre’s life was influenced by the encounter with the wild beast: the destinies of the Foix house appear to be under the sign of bear: a perfect alter ego of man, his double and at the same time his totemic projection.