Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey Brainstuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, it's possible that there's a giant, beadly
Speaker 1: serpent hanging out at the bottom of the Fustillon spring
Speaker 1: in the Burgundy region of France. It's also possible that
Speaker 1: there's no serpent. It's a legend concocted by ancient inhabitants
Speaker 1: of the village of Tonair, where the spring is located,
Speaker 1: but nobody's ever been able to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of it. Because nobody's ever been able to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of it. Fustillon is a karst spring, karst
Speaker 1: being in a regular limestone region with sinkholes underground streams
Speaker 1: and caverns. The spring burbles up an average of eighty
Speaker 1: two gallons that's three hundred and eleven liters of water
Speaker 1: every second, which is an unusually high discharge rate for
Speaker 1: this type of spring. About the velocity of the water
Speaker 1: varies from season to season. What you would be able
Speaker 1: to see of the spring if you visited the Fustillon,
Speaker 1: which translates to divine pit by the way, is a
Speaker 1: circular stone pool that was built in the eighteenth century,
Speaker 1: filled with jewel poned water, turquoise, amber and cerulean colored
Speaker 1: by the minerals, and the limestone caves from which the
Speaker 1: waters emerge. The opening of one of those caves is
Speaker 1: visible from the edge of the basin. Because humans have
Speaker 1: been using the Fastillon since before anybody was keeping track
Speaker 1: for drinking, washing, cooking, and bathing, there are stories and
Speaker 1: legends about the spring, some of which we know and
Speaker 1: some we don't. In the Middle Ages, it was thought
Speaker 1: that there was serpent that cruised around deep in the
Speaker 1: heart of the Fastillon, and some even thought it was
Speaker 1: the portal to another world. The spring features prominently in
Speaker 1: accounts of the miracles performed by the seventh century monk
Speaker 1: Saint Jean de Ryon, and I hope I said that correctly,
Speaker 1: I do not know French. He arrived in the area
Speaker 1: in the year sixty five CE to clean up the spring,
Speaker 1: which was at the time an unusable swamp. The monk
Speaker 1: reportedly dug a basilisk, a monster that's half rooster and
Speaker 1: half lizard, out of the spring and killed it, allowing
Speaker 1: people to regain the use of the Falstillon for drinking, washing,
Speaker 1: et cetera. These days, the Fustillon looks very civilized from
Speaker 1: the outside, and its stone basin surrounded by a communal
Speaker 1: washing place that was built in the eighteenth century to
Speaker 1: protect washer women from the elements as they did their
Speaker 1: laundry in the springs water. But below the surface the
Speaker 1: spring is just as wild as when Saint Jean arrived
Speaker 1: to tame it. The great mystery of the Falstillon spring
Speaker 1: is where the water actually comes from. There's certainly a
Speaker 1: lot of water coursing out of it, and like other
Speaker 1: Karst springs, the water emerges from a network of subterranean
Speaker 1: limestone caves. It's thought the Fostillon is fed by both
Speaker 1: rainwater from the hills around Tornair and at least one
Speaker 1: underground river. However, no diver has ever been able to
Speaker 1: find its source, and many of those who have tried
Speaker 1: haven't come back alive. No one even attempted to plumb
Speaker 1: the depths of the Fustillon until nineteen seventy four, when
Speaker 1: two divers undertook navigating the maze of chambers and narrow
Speaker 1: tunnels of the spring. Neither of those divers came back
Speaker 1: to tell us what they had seen. In nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 1: another diver attempted it, but he lost his life to
Speaker 1: the Fustillon as well. Before many years after, divers were
Speaker 1: prohibited from diving into the spring until twenty nineteen, when
Speaker 1: a diver undertook exploring about a thousand, two hundred feet
Speaker 1: that's three hundred and seventy meters of passageways. Luckily, he
Speaker 1: returned alive, but didn't find the source of the spring,
Speaker 1: nor did he find another dimension or a monstrous serpent.
Speaker 1: But hey, there's still time. Today's episode is based on
Speaker 1: the article France's Mysterious Fustillon Spring stubbornly keeps its secrets
Speaker 1: on how stuffworks dot com, written by Joslin Shields. Brain
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Speaker 1: how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Thing.
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