Between the Lakes: The Renaming Spell That Built Interlaken

A forgettable Swiss mill town called Rainly had one thing going for it: a medieval monastery with a magical name. In 1891, locals channeled Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea magic system by officially renaming the town Interlaken after the monastery's Latin name, Interlacus. This simple act of renaming transformed a sleepy backwater into one of Europe's most visited Alpine destinations, proving that sometimes your true name really does have power over your destiny. 00:00:00 - Intro: A Town Time Forgot (Rainly vs. Interlaken) 02:30:00 - The Earthsea Connection: True Names and Power 05:00:00 - Medieval Interlacus: The Monastery's Hidden History 08:00:00 - The 1891 Renaming That Changed Everything 10:30:00 - Tourism Boom: How a Name Built an Icon 13:30:00 - Outro: The Magic That Names Hold This podcast episode was fully generated by AI — research, script, voices, and production. Built with Claude, Piper TTS, and automated pipeline tooling.