Description
GRIUNS A Folk Tale
The genesis of a small Swiss alpine village
“Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were, but without it we go nowhere.” Carl Sagan
Without archives for the Swiss Chablais region dating from before the 11th century, this tale imagines, with some historical deduction, who the first permanent settlers were in an alpine village overlooking the Rhone Valley at the end of the 9th century.
The story follows the adventures of a young couple, a serf girl and a freed man, both socially incompatible at that period. They flee to the mountain in the winter and survive with the help of a monk and a gamekeeper.
I have lived in Gryon, the village featured in my tale, for so long that I felt it was time to express my gratitude. I have always tried to imagine who were those first people to spend a whole winter up here and not just bring up the sheep and the goats for the summer season. (The author)
