It was the middle of the 17th century when many Cerdans, frightened by a possible monster, did not dare to go to the forest or to firewood, or to go picking mushrooms, or even to go hunting. Many claimed to have seen it, others believed it after hearing the first ones.
One day, a man from Puigcerdà saw the need to go and make some firewood and decided to go to the first pines of Saltèguet, not without taking his son so that he would be attentive outside the forest and warns him in case of danger. It wasn’t long before they were there when it suddenly a roar sounded. The good man’s legs began a quick run to the place where his son was. He wasn’t there! He was a long way off with a … strange being, a terrible monster! He called to him anxiously, but the boy replied that he was a good being. Without listening to him and out of his mind, his father grabbed the shotgun he was carrying to face the beast, which, after a loud roar, disappeared into the woods.
When he arrived in the village, after strongly having told the boy off and locking him in a room in his house, he left immediately to tell his friends and the highest authority in the region. “Enough of this story, which frightens us all,” he thought. Then he decided to make an intense raid on the place where the monster had appeared. Meanwhile, at home, the boy kept telling his mother that this being was not bad. However, the group that had gone out to look for him was able to catch him alive, not without fear and great effort, and took him to prison. When the boy found out, he cried and cried in despair. The next day, when he was shown caged and well chained in the Main Square, the boy had no time to escape and go to see him. He slipped through the crowd and made his way to the front of the circle that had formed at a reasonable distance marked by the soldiers. He approached with a quick movement. Everyone shouted in fear but no one dared to approach. The beast stopped roaring and shook his hand. Instinctively, other boys did the same: the monster understood that innocent warmth of the children. Wanting to approach the father of one of the boys to push him away, the beast repeated, again, a loud roar of a few friends. In him, the monster did not notice the esteem. In two days, the conversation of the whole town and the whole of Cerdanya was none other than the subject of the monster, so that almost all the people of Cerdanya went to Puigcerdà to see him before the authorities sent him to royal court, as commented.
The great joy of those affectionate boy, however, was to learn that this being, in ” Kerresetcaps ,” had managed to escape. They knew inside that they would see him again in Cerdanya lands playing games with them and scaring or banishing those hard-hearted, true monsters.
Sebastià Bosom, the local archivist, was inspired by a document from 1654 located in the National Library of Madrid, which mentions the existence of “Kerresetcaps”. Thanks to his initiative, with the help of the “colla dels diables” and that of the town council, the fantastic creature exists today to meet again year after year with the boys of Puigcerdà on the night of Sant Joan.
