A Werewolf in Auvergne: A Poem
Auvergne has a long tradition of loups-garous (werewolves). In fact, one of the most famous loup-garou legends first appeared in Discours execrable des Sorciers (1602), a book by the French magistrate Henri Boguet. In Boguet’s tale — which is set in 1588 — a man hunting near the village of Apchon (in modern-day Cantal) is trapped by a […]
Explaining the Beauty of Auvergne to American President Thomas Jefferson
What did nineteenth-century Americans think of Auvergne? In 1801, American ambassador William Short told President Thomas Jefferson that the Limagne — a sun-kissed expanse of meadowlands and pastures in Auvergne — was “certainly the most fertile the most highly cultivated & the most magnificent district that I have ever seen”. Here’s an excerpt from Short’s […]
The Puy de Dôme: A Mystical Olympus in Auvergne
In the minds of the mythographers of ancient Greece, Mount Olympus was the home of the gods. Frequently covered in clouds and snow, it was wild and inaccessible — a constant reminder of the elemental nature of Zeus and his fellow immortals. A similar and perhaps more numinous mountain exists in the Auvergne highlands: the […]
