Margeride (in

Auvergnat or (endonym: ) is a northern dialect of Occitan spoken in central and southern France, in particular in the former administrative region of Auvergne. Currently, research shows that there is not really a true Auvergnat dialect but rather a va ...

) is a mountainous region of

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, situated in the

Massif Central The (; oc, Massís Central, ; literally ''"Central Massif"'') is a highland region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaus. It covers about 15% of mainland France. Subject to volcanism that has subsided in the last 10,0 ...

, inside the ''

départements A department (, ) is an administrative or political division in several countries. Departments are the first-level divisions of 11 countries, nine in the Americas and two in Africa. An additional 10 countries use departments as second-level div ...

'' of

Cantal Cantal (; oc, Cantal or ) is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, with its prefecture in Aurillac. Its other principal towns are Saint-Flour (the episcopal see) and Mauriac; its residents are known as Cantalians (fren ...

Haute-Loire Haute-Loire (; oc, Naut Léger or ''Naut Leir''; English: Upper Loire) is a landlocked department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of south-central France. Named after the Loire River, it is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Ardèche, ...

and

Lozère Lozère (; oc, Losera ) is a landlocked department in the region of Occitanie in Southern France, located near the Massif Central, bounded to the northeast by Haute-Loire, to the east by Ardèche, to the south by Gard, to the west by Aveyron, ...

Location

In Cantal, its western boundary is the Truyère, and its eastern boundary, in Haute-Loire, by the gorges of the river Allier. To the south, in Lozère, It is the Lot which delimits the region.

Geology

The lithology of area is manly granitoids and

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures a ...

. The highest peaks are the Signal de Randon at 1,551 metres and the Mont Mouchet at 1,465 metres.

Other details

In the 18th century the Margeride was terrorised by the Beast of Gévaudan. The beast of Gévaudan was a French legend, that supposedly takes on the appearance of a large wolf like creature. This creature is fabled to be very powerful and possessive almost like a demonic spirit. A normal man or woman (human) can open their bodies up to be possessed by the beast of Gévaudan () by drinking the water out of the footprint of a wolf, they must drink the water straight off the ground during a full moon. Once the spirit of took possession of the persons body they would experience memory blanks, loss of time which they cannot account for, fuge states, aggression, confusion, delusions and hallucinations. Supposedly was born from a continued line of werewolves, where the male of each generation would have the wolf gene in their DNA and during a blood moon they would pass on the wolf power through a bite. La Bête was first fabled to be in the body of a man named Jeziah Lou-Silvré and his sister was the one who killed him with a single spear crafted from mountain ash and mistletoe. The spirit of La Bête is the most powerful legend in France and when someone drinks the water from the print of a wolf and becomes La Bête their person gradually ceases to exist, their memories, their very essence is replaced by that of Jeziah Lou-Silvré and his spirit seeks vengeance on all hunters and descendants of his sister (the bloodline of Lou-Silvré), the name Silvré can be translated to mean Silver which is coincidentally the fabled element capable of killing a werewolf, however silver doesn't kill a wolf but simply weakens it...La Bête went after the modern descendants of his family who had the names of Silver, Silvré, Argent, Silgente. Jeziahs' sister was also known as the Maid of Gévaudan. The area was a stronghold of the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. It was from here that the Resistance worked to delay German reinforcements travelling north after the

D-Day landings The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

. Today the area contains a museum of

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overl ...

, and a park with a herd of rare

European Bison The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...

References

External links

at France for Visitors

Massif Central Landforms of Haute-Loire Landforms of Lozère Landforms of Cantal Mountain ranges of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Mountain ranges of Occitania (administrative region) {{Languedoc-geo-stub