The Mysteries

Montségur is a place of histories and mysteries, legends and myths.

In the 13^th century Christians in the southern part of France were disillusioned with the corruption of the Catholic Church and its priest and a group of people calling themselves the Bonshommes decided to go back to the basics of Christianity.

Their numbers soon increased in size and became a threat to the power of the Catholic Church. This became the story of the Inquisition, where huge numbers of the population were declared to be heretics and burned at the stake. The last strongholds of the Bonshommes were the castles in the Languedoc and Midi-Pyrenees regions of southern France. Today the Bonshommes are called the Cathars, the pure and perfect ones. The ruins of the Cathar castles still stand imposingly on mountain tops, evoking the tragic time in history they have witnessed.

Montségur was the last stronghold of the Cathars. The night before Montségur fell and more than 200 Cathars were burned at the bottom of the castle hill, a group of four managed to escape with their mysterious treasure, which has never been found.

Montségur is believed to be my many the last hiding place of the Holy Grail and the Nazis searched the area for the Grail before the Second World War. SS Officer Otto Rahn was based here in 1939 and wrote two books about his experiences.

There are many legends concerning treasures and Montségur

One is that the treasure is hidden in a cave covered by a heavy stone in the dense forest of Montségur.
You can only gain entry once a year on Palm Sunday (Fête des Ramaux) when the priest is reading the mass in church and it is possible to lift the stone. This is the only time the vipers that guard the treasure are asleep.
But you have to leave the cave again before the priest sings the ite missa or you will be swallowed by the mountain and bitten by the snakes.
Once a villager claimed to have found the stone, but couldn’t lift it. He went back to the village to get help, but could not find the place again.

There are many legends about the three lakes on the St Bartholomeus mountain that dominates the landscape. One is called the Lac des Truites (Trout lake) and the other L'Etang du Diable (the lake of the devil) or also L'Etang Mâle (the lake of evil). The lake has a depth of 63 meters. It used to be a much bigger lake, and the ancients called it a little sea.

The lake is surrounded by sheer rock faces. This is the home of the thunder and throwing a stone into the water will unleash violent storms and thunderstorms and lightning will hit you.
A young foreigner once went fishing to the lake when a mysterious boat appeared into which he climbed. The lake unleashed a terrible storm and the man drowned.

It is rumoured that Lac des Truites was really called Lac des Druides (the lake of the Druids). A long time ago, before the time of Christ, a mysterious illness overcame the village, killing people that were still healthy in the morning by night time. The desperate inhabitants of the village went to the Druids for help. The Druids told them to placate the God of Illness and Death who lives in the lake. This could be done by giving him all their gold and silver. So the villagers threw all their possessions into the lake and the Druids put a magical circle around it. The lake turned black and all the people in the village were healed. The wealth of the village is still at the bottom of the lake, but you have to overcome the magic circle and if you touch the coins, the same illness will claim you.

In the Historiographe d’Henri IV which is written in old French one can read:
La Montagne de Tabor a en son sommet une plaine, un lac ; au lac des Truites en quantité, l'eau très claire est extrêmement froide, dans laquelle si on est si hardy de jeter chose quelconque, on oit et voit ausitost les tonnerres et les foudres en l'air, suivis de gresles, pluies et tempestres, qui sembles vouloir abymer dans les profondes cavernes ce grand colosse de mont, de sortes que ceux qui sont spectateurs n'en rapportent sur eux que des effets tristes et malencontreux. from Historiographe d’Henri IV in old French

One legend as to the origin of the name ‘Lake of the Devil’ goes as follows: Jesus and St Peter had cut off the heads of the devil and his wife to punish them for arguing with each other. Realising that error in judgement that tried to replace their heads, but mixed up the bodies – since then women have the body of the devil! The devil got his revenge by throwing an enormous rock from the top of the St Bartholomew mountain; water went everywhere and a terrible thunder and lightning broke out.

Rennes-le-Château