The podcast "Under the lake of Grand-Lieu, the legends" invites you to a guided tour of a natural and supernatural site

Water flows, splits and sings its song, geese, cranes, cicadas and other birds too

The podcast "Under the lake of Grand-Lieu, the legends" invites you to a guided tour of a natural and supernatural site

Water flows, splits and sings its song, geese, cranes, cicadas and other birds too. Throughout this listening, we walk on the edge of this misty and hidden water mirror. Grand-Lieu lake, south-west of Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), is home to more than 270 species of birds – the second ornithological reserve in France after the Camargue – and it was classified as a national nature reserve in 1980, with nearly of 800 animal and plant species. Swimming, fishing and all water activities are prohibited.

This wild lake area is also the receptacle of all kinds of legends. The podcast produced by Aurélien Frances precisely mixes history with geography to immerse us in the enigmatic atmosphere of an era rooted in beliefs. Gilles Perraudeau, writer, storyteller and author, and Dominique Pierrelée, historian, give us the guided tour. Recounting their knowledge in turn, the two speakers complement each other to mix historical and fabulous facts.

Tool of Satan

The birds, which are heard throughout listening to the podcast, are at the dawn of all the myths and mysteries of this great magical place. Their song launched the construction of a terrifying imagination. "Wouldn't those noises be souls in pain?" “, once said the population, thinking of purgatory, where the deceased awaited prayers and masses to be able to enter paradise. Purgatory was invented by the clergy in the Middle Ages to have masses said and to sustain the Church, recalls Gilles Perraudeau, who is ironic in passing about those who are in hell: “They are there and they remain there. Nothing can be done for them. »

The spread of Christianity will give birth to other legends, says Dominique Pierrelée. That of the Mallet horse, a "fabulous and evil" white horse, and especially that of the engulfment of the city of Herbauges, where the worst pagan debauchery would have taken place in the 4th century, which relates "the disappearance of a world" , that of paganism, during the first evangelization of the country of Retz, led by Saint Martin, from Vertou to Herbauges.

The horse Mallet, Satan's instrument, appeared at nightfall, saddled and bridled, to "persuade exhausted travelers to mount on its back... And, as soon as it was done, the animal galloped off like a raging hurricane", says Gilles Perraudeau . To escape death, the victims had to perform the signs of the cross, throw coins bearing the sign of the cross... But the most effective was to be in possession of a medal of Saint Benedict, called "sorcerers' cross to control the evil horse.