Traditions in Annecy

The legend of the Fairy LakeOnce upon a time, in the distant memory, a charming village was established on a peninsula off Duingt off the coast of Lake Annecy. The inhabitants has a modest life there and cared only about their daily happiness.On a beautiful evening of Christmas Eve, when every family was preparing for midnight mass, here comes the Semnoz, a boat from which we do not know where it landed, coming from the great mountain next door, appears in the snow. Among the crew there is an old woman bent over her staff, with her there was a slimy and mangy dog.The two individuals hastened to invite themselves to the village despite the cold and the strong wind. The poor woman thought that it was better to stop one night and go back early in the morning. She knocked at the door of the first house she found, the lady of the house who was wrapping the dough of her rissoles, hastened to open.She was astounded while finding the old woman with her dog at such a late hour. She has also pointed it out that honest people should not go for a walk on Christmas Eve and told the old woman to join her family. "Alas, my good lady, I would just like a piece of bread and a barn corner for me and my dog, we come from Semnoz and we are tired by this time ...", the beggar said while shivering with cold.The lady of the house did not want to hear anything and chased the intruder submitting that there was no room for her and her dog at home. And here was the poor old woman who was leaving to look for a shelter further away, but no one wanted her in the village. Wherever she went, she was rejected and sent away without anyone having pity on her.She decided to go back to the mountain, accompanied by her dog peeled, drooling and mangy despite the cold and the snow. Walking through the valley, she soon reached the summit. From a distance, the village, located near Lake Annecy seemed even tiny. She watched the people coming out of their houses walking happily towards the church as the bell rang the twelve strokes of midnight.Suddenly, a strange metamorphosis occurred. The old woman turned into a beautiful young woman dressed in a beautiful ermine coat and the dog becomes a wonderful powerful beast. Because at the beginning, she was the Fairy Lake. She turned back to the village and said, "Bad people, be punished as you deserve! ".At the moment a huge cataclysm engulfs the whole village, which was sucked into the depths of the tidal waves for ... always. If on Christmas Eve you spend in Annecy, give yourself a few minutes by the lake and listen ... You will hear somewhere of the twelve bell-towers that seem more distant. It is the eternal and desperate complaint of the engulfed village.