Fontaine miraculeuse de Laveyssière (Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité)

Laveyssière (Eyraud-Crempse-Maurens)

At Laveyssière, in the village on the bank of the Eyraud, a small fountain is placed under the protection of the child Virgin. The neighbouring church, Notre-Dame-de-la-Nativité, goes back to the 13th century and was embellished in the 18th. Each year, on 8 September, a pilgrimage comes to the fountain. According to tradition, a cowherd discovered a statue of the Virgin here: one of his herd is said to have pointed it out with its hoof. In another version, it is a blind cow that came to seek a cure from this water. It was long believed that the village's name came from the Latin vacca, the cow. In fact it comes from the Occitan vaissa, the hazel. Around 1850 the festivities of the octave of the Nativity could gather up to 6,000 people, coming from the Dordogne, the Gironde and the Lot-et-Garonne. Some pilgrims dipped their diseased limbs or frail children in the water. At the end of the 19th century the old statue had disappeared: the Rivasson family, one of whose members was mayor, gave a new one, a Maria Santissima Bambina, the ‘Vierge-enfant’. The figures for 1850 come from Wikipédia; for the legend, Wikipédia cites a work of 1985.

Getting there: In the village of Laveyssière, beside the church. The pilgrimage takes place each year on 8 September; outside this date, access to the chapel was not verified. Coordinates: village centre in OpenStreetMap (Nominatim); the fountain is a few tens of metres from the church, exact position not verified.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound