France’s Legendary Haunted Lighthouse has First Resident Since 1910<\/h1>\n
Written by Jessie Guy-Ryan in Feb 2016<\/p>\n
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For French sailors, hell can be found off the coast of Brittany.<\/p>\n
Between the French mainland and the \u00cele de Sein is a stretch of water known as the Raz de Sein, infamous for its violent currents. The lighthouses dotting the uninhabited islands along the waterway are difficult to reach and can house at most two lighthouse keepers living in austere conditions\u2014earning the lighthouses the nickname \u201chell\u201d from sailors and lighthouse keepers. Hell has been empty since the lighthouses were automated, but yesterday one man began a two-month residence in one of hell\u2019s most haunted towers.<\/p>\n
T\u00e9vennec has a special reputation among the lighthouses of Brittany as the location of hauntings and madness. In Breton mythology, death is personified by Ankou, who protects graveyards and gathers the souls of the deceased. Allegedly, boats sailing the Raz de Sein without an engine are carried by the current directly to T\u00e9vennec, leading locals to claim it is the home of Ankou and a gathering place for the souls of dead sailors.<\/p>\n
When the lighthouse was first established in 1875, the French government classified it as a lighthouse requiring a single keeper, and like any good spooky story, eerie happenings began immediately. According to legend, the first lighthouse keeper, Henri Guezennec, was driven insane by ghostly voices demanding he leave. After the same fate befell Guezennec\u2019s replacement, the government reclassified T\u00e9vennec as a two-man lighthouse, but the additional keeper doesn\u2019t appear to have ended the strange happenings. According to Le T\u00e9l\u00e9gramme<\/em>, crucifixes were embedded into rocks on the island in an 1893 attempt to exorcise it, and in 1897 the French government began recruiting married couples to keep the lighthouse, in the hopes that companionship would ease the loneliness experienced on the isolated isle. Louis and Marie-Jacquette Qu\u00e9m\u00e9r\u00e9 lived on the island with their three children, a cow, and no documented encounters with ghosts. The lighthouse was automated in 1910, and T\u00e9vennec remained uninhabited until yesterday, when Marc Pointud set out on his ambitious plan to inhabit the island for 60 days.<\/p>\n Marc Pointud is the president of the National Society for Heritage, Lighthouses, and Beacons (Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Nationale Pour le Patrimoine des Phares et Balises, SNPB for short), an organization founded in 2002 to advocate for the preservation and restoration of France\u2019s lighthouses. Last year, Pointud announced his intention to occupy T\u00e9vennec for two months in a bid to raise funds for the SNPB\u2019s efforts towards renovating the lighthouse and converting it to an artist\u2019s retreat.<\/p>\n The project received some media attention in France when it was crowdfunded last summer, with VICE France\u00a0<\/em>interviewing Pointud about his plans. French newspaper Le T\u00e9l\u00e9gramme <\/em>reported on Pointud\u2019s departure for T\u00e9vennec and the beginning of his residency. The article highlights the difficulty of the project\u2014Pointud and his supplies reach the lighthouse by helicopter in an operation described as \u201cdelicate,\u201d noting that the helicopter\u2019s pilot, Pierre de Brissac, is \u201cnot impressed\u201d by the landing options.<\/p>\n Despite the logistical difficulties, there\u2019s a clear enthusiasm for Pointud\u2019s project among those with a connection to T\u00e9vennec; attendees yesterday included Michel Plouhinec, a lighthouse keeper whose great-grandfather was stationed at T\u00e9vennec for 15 years, along with the grandchildren of the Qu\u00e9m\u00e9r\u00e9s. Pointud explained toThe Connexion<\/em> that restoring the lighthouse will cost over 200,000 euros due to the difficulty in transporting materials to the island, spurring the need for publicity to attract sponsors.<\/p>\n But he is also embarking on this project to honor the memory of the lighthouse keepers, who spent years of their lives in hardship\u2014with or without ghosts\u2014to operate T\u00e9vennec: \u201cI am proud to enroll in the tradition of the great guards who once dared, in much more difficult circumstances than me, to face the sea in places like this.”<\/p>\n <3 Anna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Or, Step Into One Of France’s Most Haunted Spots Click here to see the original article or scroll down to read the whole story. France’s Legendary Haunted Lighthouse has First Resident Since 1910 Written by Jessie Guy-Ryan in Feb 2016 For French sailors, hell can be found off the coast of Brittany. Between the French […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Haunted Lighthouse Has New Resident","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[73],"tags":[74,635,636,637],"class_list":["post-2772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-haunted-house","tag-ghost","tag-haunted-lighthouse","tag-raz-de-sein","tag-tevennec"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Wkl2-II","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2772"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2776,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2772\/revisions\/2776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annaabner.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ghosts, Hauntings, & Cheap Books: Sign Up For My Monthly Newsletter<\/a> Today.<\/h5>\n
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