Laguiole, an Aubrac village that gave its name to a knife
Before it was a knife, Laguiole was a village, a high-altitude market town on the Aubrac plateau, the upland country of burons, russet cows and wide open spaces that stretches north-east of our corner of Aveyron. We like to go there as part of an outing to the Aubrac, when we fancy a change of air and swapping the gorges of the Lot or the Dourdou for the plateau's vast open horizons. The atmosphere is nothing like our deep valleys: here you are at altitude, the wind carries far, and the village lives wide open to the summer pastures.
It is from this harsh land that the knife's ancestor was born at the beginning of the 19th century: the capuchadou, a simple fixed-blade pointed knife set in a piece of wood, which Aubrac farmers used every day. The story takes a more romantic turn with the region's seasonal workers, who went to work in Spain or Catalonia in winter as labourers or pit sawyers. Some brought back a navaja, the Spanish knife with a slender yataghan-shaped blade and a curved handle, an object that clearly made an impression, since its influence can plainly be seen in the silhouette of the future Laguiole.
From the family inn to a legendary object
Local tradition dates the knife's birth to the end of the 1820s, around Pierre-Jean Calmels, a young man from the area said to have been fascinated by the navaja of a traveller staying at his parents' inn. From this meeting between the local capuchadou and the Spanish knife, the first Laguiole knife as we begin to recognise it is said to have been born around 1829: a yataghan-shaped blade and a slender handle. The object then evolved over the century according to its uses: the awl (or trocar), which appeared around 1840, allowed farmers to treat bloated cattle and pierce leather; the corkscrew came later, around 1880, when café owners from the Rouergue settled in Paris and wanted a tool that could open a bottle as well as a hard piece of bread.
The bee, emblem of the Laguiole: but where does it really come from?
If there is one question we are always asked when we show a genuine Laguiole knife to our guests, it is about the little bee engraved on the spring, at the spot known as the "fly". The most widespread legend says that Napoleon allowed the people of the region to display the imperial bee on their knives, as a reward for their bravery after the battle of Mount Tabor in 1799. It is a lovely story (we won't deny ourselves the pleasure of telling it), but it has never been established with certainty, and we prefer to remain cautious about it.
The most serious explanation is probably more modest: originally this fly was perfectly plain, and craftsmen got into the habit of decorating it to show off their skill, with geometric or floral patterns. Over time, some of these patterns are thought to have become stylised until they suggested an insect, a theory supported by the Occitan language, in which abelha (bee) sounds close to terms for one of the knife's assembly parts. Historical truth or linguistic drift embellished by the Napoleonic legend, we won't settle it here, but over the generations the bee has indeed become the knife's visual signature. You also often find a small cross inlaid on the handle: the "shepherd's cross", a later tradition from the end of the 19th century, which allowed shepherds alone on the Aubrac to plant their knife upright in a loaf or in the ground to pray, with the cross clearly visible.
How to recognise a well-made knife
A real concern we often hear from our guests: how do you spot a quality knife, without getting lost in a huge range where the name "Laguiole" is not protected by any designation of origin and can legally be used anywhere in the world? We always give them the same simple pointers, the ones passed on to us: the place of manufacture engraved on the blade, a spring that snaps cleanly and firmly when opening and closing (the famous Laguiole "clack"), a fly finely chiselled by hand rather than moulded, and a handle in a fine material (horn, precious wood or bone) fitted snugly with no play. In any case, nothing beats seeing the object made before your eyes in a village workshop: it is the best guarantee you can have, and often a chance to talk directly with the person holding the hammer.
The long detour via Thiers, and the forge's return home
What we find most surprising in this story is that at one point, almost no Laguiole knives were made in Laguiole. From the 1920s, production gradually moved to the Thiers area in the Puy-de-Dôme, more industrialised and better equipped to meet growing demand. By the mid-20th century, local manufacture had practically disappeared from the Aubrac plateau.
The revival came in the 1980s, driven by local councillors and enthusiasts determined to bring the craft back to its homeland. Young people from Laguiole were sent to train as cutlers, notably in the Thiers workshops, before returning to set up their own workshops in the village. The first assembly stages reappeared in Laguiole in the second half of the 1980s, followed by the return of the forge itself. Today, Laguiole production is shared between the Thiers area and the Laguiole area, the two traditions coexisting and enriching each other rather than competing.
Visiting the village workshops and forges
This is where the visit really comes into its own: several cutlery workshops in the village are open to the public, and you can watch the cutlers at work, between the ring of hammers on the anvil and the smell of wood being shaped for handles. Depending on the workshop, visits are self-guided or guided, free or paid, sometimes with live assembly demonstrations: it is especially lively in summer. You follow the whole process step by step: forging the blade, fitting the liners, setting the spring and the famous fly, then polishing and fitting the handle, often in horn or wood.
Like many local people, we have our favourites among the village cutlers: those whose skill, welcome or simply way of talking about their craft we enjoy. We never name them here, so as not to seem to favour one craftsman over another on a public blog. But ask us once you are here: we will gladly tell you what you really mustn't miss, and which cutler we would rather recommend (shh, it's confidential!).
Our advice if you head up to the Aubrac from our place: don't limit yourself to the knife. The village is worth strolling around, popping into a few craft shops and taking time over a traditional meal. We almost always take the opportunity to enjoy a good, stretchy aligot there. Be careful not to confuse the two local products: the knife bears the village's name, whereas Laguiole cheese is a protected designation of origin in its own right, whose fresh tome is precisely the base of aligot. Two distinct traditions born of the same land.
We like to fit in a visit to a knife museum in the village on the same day: a pleasant way to step back from what you have just seen in the workshop, with old pieces, some very elaborate, that show how much the object has evolved since the simple peasant capuchadou of the early 19th century. You get a good sense of the journey from everyday tool to the collector's item it has become for some enthusiasts.
From our cottage, a lovely way to extend your discovery of Aveyron
The Aubrac plateau does not look like our valleys around Pruines: it is a more open, windier country, best discovered as a complement to a stay with us, once you have explored our immediate surroundings such as Conques and feel like going a little further. We like this kind of plan: the morning in our valleys and the afternoon in the wide open spaces of the Aubrac, with a detour to the Laguiole forges to go home with a real local knife, chosen directly from the craftsman who made it.