We have been coming every winter to Morzine since 2008. We love it here; great skiing, great views, great town, great everything… but it’s always been a little bit quirky, there have always been a few characters around town and maybe this is down to a fever that gripped the village back in 1857.

It was still in the hands of the Swiss in those days but the tale of Peronne Tavernier lives on. She was the first, at just 10yrs old, gripped by convulsions and seizures which spread throughout the community. Some said it was from the devil himself!

“As a general rule, the victims spoke in hoarse, rough tones unlike their own, used profane language, such as few of them could ever have heard, and imitated the actions of crawling, leaping, climbing animals with ghastly fidelity. Sometimes they would roll their bodies up into balls and distort their limbs beyond the power of the attendant physicians to account for, or disentangle. Many amongst them were levitated in the air, and in a few instances, the women spoke in foreign tongues, manifested high conditions of exaltation, described glorious visions, prophesied, gave clairvoyant descriptions of absent persons and distant places, sang hymns, and preached in strains of sublime inspiration” (Spence, 1920, p396)

And I know people in Morzine who are still like this today… it may just be the effect of the Mutzig from Robinsons Bar, or the Scary Cocktails from Happy Hours Bar… it could be the euphoric-ness (if that’s a word) from the party bands in The Cavern, or the hectic rising of the devil himself at punk night in Café Chaud….. Demonomania still lives on….?

I think this is why HOFNAR fits in here so well!!

Here’s a few good reads about it: