In the heart of France, the Berry<\/strong> area has been famous for its witches for ages. In this marshy and foggy land of dark shadowy forests, the old people will tell you stories of curses, of cat-eaters or owls nailed on doors. Those legends <\/strong>were certainly by some real events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the XIXth <\/strong>century, the farmers started to leave the country to live in the towns. As a consequence, the Berry<\/strong> villages\u00a0became deserted and even poorer without proper doctors. So they started to practise the \u00ab\u00a0poor people\u2019s medicine\u00a0\u00bb because they had to cope and find ways to make do with what they had. In every village there would be a faith-healer and a bone-setter, and in many families its as not uncommon to find one who could block any sort of evil\u00a0: skin diseases, burns, insects stings or bites\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n When she wrote about this dark and mysterious country, Georges Sand<\/strong> played a great part in making the XIXth century whitches\u2019 image available to all. In her novel \u00ab\u00a0La Mare au Diable<\/strong>\u00a0\u00bb (The Devil\u2019s pool<\/strong>), she relates with great realism the local superstitions and wizzards\u2019 stories. Claude Seignolle<\/strong> as well as other writers too have widely drawn inspiration from them for their novels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With the passing time those \u00ab birettes \u00bb (a Berry word for witches) have finally become a kind of local colouring and a real cultural heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wizards\u2019night<\/strong> finds its origines in old beliefs but also in real facts. Bu\u00e9 is definitely a wiches\u2019 land with fantastic creatures coming out of the Sancerre<\/strong> customs and wizards. And here are not merely legends\u00a0: at the end of the XVIth century at a time when the place was disturbed by religious conflicts, a very famous witchcraft trial took place at Sens Beaujeu, it was about the \u00ab\u00a0Carroi de Marlou\u00a0\u00bb in nowadays language \u00ab\u00a0the evil wolf crossroad\u00a0\u00bb. Right at that place, near the village of Bu\u00e9, a sabbath was supposed to have taken place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Five men were accused by a twelve year old boy of attending that wizards meeting. They were found guilty and executed on the spot of the fact. And as she was accused of the same fact, an imprisonned woman strangled herself. That real story inspired father Joseph Barreau and the tale-teller Jean Louis Boncoeur and gave them the idea of organizing the first witches feast (f\u00eate des birettes) in 1946, a kind of wizards fair in order to raise funds to repair the local church. Years after, the tradition is still carried on and it takes place every first Saturday in August on the very place of those tragic events now called \u00abcreux de Marloup\u00a0\u00bb.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe wizards\u2019 night<\/h3>\n\n\n\n