It’s very spring like today and I feel like walking in the mountains but…I’ve put on so much weight and am so unfit that I wonder if a little stroll around the park wouldn’t be wiser.
Several kilos ago, I used to walk up the mountain above the village of Seyssinet-Pariset. Perched at the top is a small ruin known as the Tour Sans Venin, which means ‘Tower Without Venom’. There are many legends attached to this tower but they all agree that the place was once infested with poisonous snakes – a fact I wish I’d known before trekking up there. One legend tells of how the Dauphin (heir to the throne) promised land to those Lords who joined the Crusades. The Lord of Seyssinet was promised this beautiful piece of land – perfect for a château. However, he also knew that the place was riddled with snakes. When he came back from the Crusades, he brought with him a sack of soil from the Holy Land and spread this on the ground – snakes, of course, were the manifestation of the Devil. Sure enough, the snakes disappeared and the Lord was able to build his castle, of which this tower was part.
Several kilos ago, I used to walk up the mountain above the village of Seyssinet-Pariset. Perched at the top is a small ruin known as the Tour Sans Venin, which means ‘Tower Without Venom’. There are many legends attached to this tower but they all agree that the place was once infested with poisonous snakes – a fact I wish I’d known before trekking up there. One legend tells of how the Dauphin (heir to the throne) promised land to those Lords who joined the Crusades. The Lord of Seyssinet was promised this beautiful piece of land – perfect for a château. However, he also knew that the place was riddled with snakes. When he came back from the Crusades, he brought with him a sack of soil from the Holy Land and spread this on the ground – snakes, of course, were the manifestation of the Devil. Sure enough, the snakes disappeared and the Lord was able to build his castle, of which this tower was part.
Another legend tells of a wise woman who lived there and who could treat snake bites by rubbing them with a mixture of herbs that grew close to the cliff’s edge. Yet another claims that the ruin is a monument to Isis, the goddess of fertility, built by peasants desperate to work the barren land.
Well, as long as the snakes are gone, I don’t really care which explanation is true…
