Bayou Bourleau
At the Bayou Bourleau, just beside the plantation house Pointe Chrétienne, there is the ghost of a girl who was killed on a bridge over the bayou. She appears in a white shroud. Sometimes she is called feu follé, because she glows like fire. She stands still on the bridge as you approach her and you can get very close to her, but if you try to touch her she disappears.—Collected from Louis Darby of Opelousas, Louisiana (August 1989).
Source: Young, Richard Alan, and Judy Dockery Young, eds. Ghost Stories from the American Southwest. Little Rock: August House, 1991.
Dead Man’s Curve
It was a long time ago, at Dead Man’s Curve, between Paradis and Des Allemands on an old road that runs along the railroad track. There was a little cemetery where the relatives set out voodoo regalia on the graves. My friends and I used to run through and pick up black candles used in séances when we were in high school. The road goes on past the cemetery to a real sharp curve that they call Dead Man’s Curve. In the forties or fifties, before the road was paved, a young couple in a roadster took the curve too fast and were killed. I heard it said that they had sped away when they heard something in the cemetery.
If you slow down or stop after midnight at the curve, you can hear them scream, and you see these pillars of blue light moving among the trees. There’s a "swamp phosphorous" that glows, that is used as the explanation for this, but that’s ridiculous. We drove through slow one night and stopped because we heard the screams; we watched. These lights were moving. Now, swamp phosphorous doesn’t move. These lights move, big pillars of blue light, taller than a person, coming toward the road, then turning and "walking" back off into the woods. Needless to say, we left—very quickly. I’ve heard this story over and over, but I saw this! We heard tires screeching, then a boy’s voice screaming, then we saw the lights. Then we left!—Collected from Pat Echeté of St. Charles Parish (June 1990).
Source: Young, Richard Alan, and Judy Dockery Young, eds. Ghost Stories from the American Southwest. Little Rock: August House, 1991.
De Luc De Laga
Your Paw-Paw used to take us kids out trolling with him in Lake Lerie. He would tell us about (and I think he believed) de luc de laga, a light on the lake. We could see the marshland and then the big lake, and we would see these balls of fire in the lake when the sun started rising. Daddy said that light was a spirit light that would chase down bad people and burn them. I remember hearing that some people cursed the light, and the light chased them down and rolled over them, burning their skin. We believed it and would behave on the boat so de luc de laga wouldn’t get us. It also kept us from wandering out on the lake unattended. It was probably just gas light, but it sure kept us in line!—Collected from Mom (Judy Brining) of Metairie (1999).