In the village of Pougne-Herisson (Poitou, france) they say that all the world's tales strated out from here. They say that they return to nestle in the navel of the World, the Garden of Stories… open-air museum, with sound and play, where tales are revived, invented and told.


From May 9th to June 6th : Saturday / Sunday from 2 PM to 7 PM
From June 12nd to September 12nd : Everyday from 10 : 30 AM to 7 PM
From Septembre 18th to October 10th : Saturday / Sunday from 2 PM to 7 PM


Adults : 5.50 €

Children from 4 to 18 : 3 €
Children under 4 : free

By car or by airplane : on the road again !




From the beginning until the One Hundred Years War
The legend says that in the beginning was the word. Then, the word became emotion. And then, it became fire, the original fire, the burning fire of the tales of the world. During the mythological Big Bang, this fire scattered to the four corners of our earth in a huge burst of flame, spreading the pollen of tales and myths. Tales take on the colours and the smells of faraway lands and people.
But, just as eels by ancient instinct go to the Sargasso Sea to breed, tales return to regenerate themselves, to the source of emotions, to Pougne-Herisson, where everything starts afresh, where every tale is told anew… Once it had cooled down, the fire became granite stone, story-generating ore where words are at rest. There is every reason to believe that stones in Stonehenge (England), come from the mine in Pougne-Herisson and that they constitute a fantastic collection of stories.
In the early Middle Ages, Pougne-Herisson was a village bustling with life and laughter. Troubadours from all over Europe came at the source of tales. But a cruel destiny hit the country : the One Hundred Years war ! During that dark time, the men at war no longer went down into the mine. From then on, tales no longer travelled and inexorably, the suffering mine ran dry.


The heritage of John barney Ferguson
It was not until June 6th, 1944 that a certain John Barney Ferguson, an American native of Colorado, parachuted by mistake onto Pougne-Herisson, fell into the abandoned mine and rediscovered it… When he fell, JBF made the extraordinary discovery which was to change his life completely : "Pougne-Herisson is the Navel of the World." After the Liberation, this gentleman, met a man who was to become his friend, Robert Jarry, the village blacksmith.
Together, for several years, they were to examine in detail the role of Pougne-Herisson in the world. In the early fifties, JBF wrote his famous thesis "The Navel. Why ? How ?" which brought to light the dominating role of Pougne-Herisson and revealed its vocation as the Navel of the Earth. Unfortunately, this fundamental work disappeared along with its author in a mysterious fire in the Great Library of Pougne-Herisson, on July 30th, 1958.
From then on, Robert Jarry continue the work of his deceased research companion and achieve this insane goal : bring back to Pougne-Herisson the tales that had originally left the Navel of the Earth. He imagined and produced, in his garden, some "paleofuturistic" machinery, like a gathering place, an altar of repose, a damp area for migrating tales, a machine-garden for collecting the essence (the senses), the sap of tales. A sort of welcoming home for tired myths.
Robert Jarry's greatest regret will no doubt have been the failure of that machine, which never worked during his lifetime.