Detroit's 'Red Dwarf' — the Goblin Blamed for 300 Years of Bad Luck

Every city has its ghost stories, but Detroit has something better: a centuries-old goblin with his own parade.

Meet the Nain Rouge (French for “red dwarf”), a small, red-faced, sharp-toothed creature said to appear right before disaster strikes the city. According to the legend, Detroit’s founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, ran into the imp back in the early 1700s and — instead of treating it kindly, as a fortune teller had warned him — whacked it with his cane and told it to scram. Soon after, Cadillac’s fortunes collapsed: he lost his post, his money, and his good name.

Over the years, locals claimed the Nain Rouge turned up before all sorts of calamities — the 1805 fire that nearly burned Detroit to the ground, the 1967 unrest, even a brutal 1976 ice storm. Believe it or not, this is folklore, not history: scholars note there’s no written record of the legend before the 1880s, when it first appeared in a book called Legends of Le Détroit (1883). Researchers think it’s a blend of French and Native American storytelling traditions, woven together over generations.

Here’s the delightful modern twist. Since 2010, Detroiters have thrown an annual springtime parade — the Marche du Nain Rouge — to symbolically chase the red dwarf out of town and welcome a luckier year. As the official Marche describes it, “thousands of revelers gather for a parade through Midtown Detroit… They wear grand costumes, build spectacular floats, roll out marching bands and krewes representing all corners of the city.” It’s become a beloved, slightly bonkers rite of spring.