The Devil of Châteaugay: A Dark History
Did a “devil” once haunt of the castle of Châteaugay? Here’s everything you need to know about the village’s secret history of occultism.
Hidden Riom: 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Auvergne’s City of Art
A beautiful city of art, Riom is largely unknown outside France. Its world of hidden histories is worth exploring. Here’s why.
Le Paradis: Art and Creativity in the Hills of Royat
Situated in the rocky hills above Royat, Le Paradis is a Tuscan-like villa that continues to be a beacon for leisure, art, and creativity.
The Bizarre Story of a Tornado Machine Conceived in Auvergne
In the 1960s, one scientist working for a research organisation in Auvergne accidentally created a tornado machine. This is his story.
Occult Auvergne: A Christmas Ghost Story
In this Christmas ghost story from Auvergne, a vampire-like creature rises from the grave to prey on a spiritually unprepared adolescent.
A Banquet of Demigods on the Puy de Dôme
France has many mountains, but only one Olympus: the puy de Dôme. In the 18th century it was the site of a notorious banquet of “demigods”.
Henri Lecoq’s Haunting Encounter with the Brocken Spectre
The mountain hunters of past centuries have seen unaccountable and terrible forms in the mountain mists, and legends have carried the phenomena from the plainly natural to the weirdly superhuman. – J. Gordon McPherson The world is full of haunted places — each with its own bone-chilling claim to infamy. That said, few places can […]
Occult Auvergne: How to Become a Werewolf
Obtained by a 19th-century physician, this ritual from Auvergne tells you how to become a become a werewolf.
What to See in Beast of Gévaudan Territory
It was in Gévaudan that this wild beast had established his everyday encampment…Nevertheless, this monster repeatedly made incursions into Auvergne, especially in the region of Saint-Flour, where it devoured numerous victims. And to save themselves, the parishes of Auvergne joined forceswith those of the Gévaudan… -François Fabre The isolated highlands of pre-Revolution Gévaudan and Auvergne […]
Occult Auvergne: Witches and Fatsillères
I fancied that Auvergne was a country far, very far off, where strange things were to be seen, and where one could not travel but with great danger and under the safeguard of the Mother of God. -François René de Chateaubriand In many ways, Old Auvergne was the “Transylvania of France”, a realm that — […]
