Haunted houses, castles, ghosts and other paranormal stories in Aveyron

A land of mysteries and legends, Aveyron is full of places reputed to be haunted, known to have been the scene of diableries or macabre deeds. Here’s a small selection of spooky tales to give you the creeps!

The strange story of the possessed woman of Grèzes

This is the case of Sister Saint-Fleuret, a young nun from Aveyron, said to be the victim of demonic possession. The story takes place in 1902 in Grèzes, a commune of Sévérac-l’ Église near Laissac. According to witnesses at the time, the nun, originally from the canton of Bozouls, was possessed by the devil. The sight of the slightest sacred object – a crucifix, a Bible or a pious image – immediately plunged the unfortunate woman into a hysterical trance. Bite marks and burns can be seen all over her body – the “marks of the devil”, as the saying went in those days. Prayer, confession and recourse to a priest-exorcist did nothing. She was suddenly cured after a pilgrimage to Pellevoisin, near Châteauroux(Indre).

The White Lady of Belcastel Castle

At Château de Belcastel, an ancient medieval fortress perched on a cliff, you can go in search of the Dame Blanche. Its successive owners claim to have heard a feminine voice calling them by their first name at night. Some visitors also claim to have seen her – blonde, pale and frail-looking – wandering the castle corridors. It could be the ghost of Cécile de Saunhac, suspected of infidelity and thrown from the castle keep in 1488 by her husband, Seigneur Alzias de Saunhac. Calling all ghost hunters and stalkers visiting Aveyron!

The Haunted House of Frayssinous

The small village of Trémouilles, at Frayssinous, 20 km south of Rodez, was the scene of paranormal phenomena in the late 1930s. Newspapers of the time recounted the affair: rains of pebbles, objects moving by themselves, a fireball on electric wires, unexplained fires, a black dog appearing and disappearing all the time, cows detaching themselves… The inhabitants suspected a young girl from the neighboring hamlet who had been in possession of books with the power to cast spells. She was also said to be able to move objects by thought. A phenomenon known as “poltergeist”. For skeptics, a report was made a few years after the event, with testimonies gathered from local residents.

The Beast of Gévaudan

Everyone has heard of the Beast of Gévaudan, the terrifying creature that brought bloodshed to Lozère in the 18th century, but also to Rouergue( nowAveyron ), Aubrac and Cantal. Between 1764 and 1767, the ferocious beast claimed almost a hundred victims, mainly women and children. It cut off their heads and drank their blood. The few people who have seen the monster speak of a hybrid creature, a cross between a spectacularly large wolf and a wild dog, similar to the fighting dogs of the Roman army. Others claim it was an African striped hyena the size of a young bull. Several battues were organized… to no avail. On June 19, 1767, a local farmer, Jean Chastel, killed a large wolf with a shotgun, and the deaths stopped thereafter. The autopsy report on the beast described it as “a wolf, but extraordinary and very different in figure and proportions from the wolves seen in this country”.

photo@Hilary Clark