Switzerland tells

© Museum Iserables

Between the hamlet and the Cherry Peak Nendaz, is a green plate, all framed by forests, and called Zofflen.

It would be difficult to imagine a more lonely place, cooler, more peaceful. Grasslands are dense, grass dotted with fragrant flowers, the herds are grazing after haying.

Under the immense forests that surround the fat pasture, found in mass me-not that the locals call "Embrunes", of bearberry (uvae ursi), all kinds of fungi, from the huge bloat-buff delicious chanterelle, orange.

The borders of these almost virgin wood, where owls and hawks nest at ease, today we see an old abandoned cottage, open to all comers. His face is dark, its cracked and tumbling roof exudes sadness ruins, façade, small black berries, without windows, has something sinister, and the crown of nettles and thistles surrounding evidenced by the dismal dropout where it was left. This is a haunted cottage.

- A cottage in the haunted deserted mountain, why not ? It ensures that there are many haunted houses in large cities, no tenant agrees to live. Our era of skepticism is not even succeeded in lifting quite naive beliefs moyennageux time. ]No wonder therefore that at the heart of the Old Country, traditions if perennial, the lonely and deserted alp, at the border of pastures and forests, it is a haunted cottage.

I did tell her story by an almost octogenarian shepherd, qui inhabit a mayen, on the other side of the mountain.

I defer to my naive narrator.

The cottage that you just saw on the Alpe Zofflen was built in 1730, and you could see from a beam in the kitchen, where this date is carved in wood, as well as the name of its owner Theodule Bluvignoud, whose family is off.

You probably know that, any time, the Valais loved dance, and that is for breaking the defense of the Church condemns as a dangerous game, that many of our ancestors suffered their punishment in the crevices of large glaciers.

So we danced the cottage Zofflen, where youth Nendaz went on Sunday, to escape the supervision of the priest.

Or, It happened on the day of the Assumption, there is much more to this than a hundred years, since my father who told me he remembered only, they danced to Zofflen all afternoon, carefree catechism and Vespers.

But now, at the middle of the dance, comes a great man, richly dressed, which seeks to be dancing, promise to pay a pint of Humagne to youth, to return to the village.

Young Nendettes, or shyness, or by mistrust, refused to dance with foreign. One, nicknamed "Mauguette", accepted the offer of the unknown, both pride to brave the envy of his classmates.

The big man took her in his arms and began his reckless dancer who gave a sarabande dizzy those who saw ; he had twenty more times around the dance field and stopped at the request of the Mauguette who could no longer.

Decidedly, this character was mysterious, it was not an ordinary man ; its red and bony face was something mocking, and his clothes had a funny smell, who suffocated.

Among young Nendards was an old boy who conceived some remorse so bad sanctify the Lord's Day and a great distrust of the intruder came from who knows where and, without discomfort, had just entered the cottage with his partner.

Jean-Marie - that was his name - went to turn in the chalet, and while abroad was whispering in the ear of the Mauguette, he went out of his pocket prayer book and began to read the Gospel of John.

Immediately, through the open window, we saw with amazement the great man and his partner rushing out, in a whirlwind of flames. And it was then discovered that the mysterious dancer had cloven feet. It was Satan, personally.

The cottage breathed therefore an unbearable smell of sulfur and saltpeter, who made uninhabitable.

On another, from this day, lives in prowling around the cottage and into the kitchen a big red pig and a black hen that tried in vain to chase ; they always reappeared and it finally gave up the smash, convinced that they were evil spirits come to earth to atone for their sins.

But the cottage was finally abandoned by its owner ; stays, day or night, it has become possible.

For over one hundred years it is desert, not for asylum as night birds or of hardy hunters who make a stop, returning of Iserables forests, there for a snack and to smoke a pipeful, when the rain came the surprise on the way.

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