The commons / La Corriveau
La Corriveau
A real 18th-century woman whose gibbeted execution turned her into an enduring Québécois ghost figure.
Marie-Josephte Corriveau was tried and hanged in 1763 for the murder of her second husband. Under the British military regime, her body was displayed in an iron gibbet cage at a crossroads near Lévis — a public, foreign punishment that seared itself into local memory.
Fact decayed into folklore. In the oral tradition she became a witch and a vengeful spirit, her iron cage said to swing and clatter at night, chasing travellers. The historical record and the legend diverge sharply — which is precisely what makes her a case study in how a community metabolizes trauma into story over generations.