The scariest stories are true…
— Aaron Mahnke, Lore
Lore is one of the finest words in the English language. Lore is something more profound than mere knowledge; it bespeaks a grasp of truth deeper and wilder than mere fact, a plumbing of the mythic depths.
Aaron Mahnke has turned his podcast Lore into a wonderful compendium of weird tales — and it’s now been picked up by Amazon as a streaming video TV series. Because we all crave the lore of the dark edges of our world…
What Mahnke knows is that nothing is as creepy or as scary as a weird tale that happens to be true. Earlier this month, Lore explored my favorite true tale of terror — the story of The Beast of Gévaudan. Take a half-hour and listen to it here.
Once upon a time long ago in rural France, in a land known as the Gévaudan, a young shepherdess was found dead, slaughtered by a mysterious bete féroce, a ferocious beast. This bloodthirsty monster then attacked and killed others — children, women, and men — bringing about a never-ending night of dread that lasted for three long years… *
The Beast of Gévaudan conducted its bloody reign of terror from 1764 to 1767 in a remote, isolated region of the highlands of southern France, a dark corner of Europe that had changed little from medieval times, a roadless, rugged frontier.
Three-hundred-and-fifty miles south of the glittering palace of Versailles…
France was a primeval world of water and brimstone, where aqua pure ran its own course through yawning gorges thousands of feet beneath otherworldly volcanic peaks. Tangled forests were home to fearsome creatures, real and imaginary. Peasants resided in isolated villages, making their livings as weavers, lacemakers, farmers and charcoal burners. Here children as young as five years old… were put to work, often as caregivers of livestock. Herd girls and boys, sometimes with siblings or children of neighbors, would guide cattle and sheep to highland pastures and bring them home at day’s end. Some might overnight in huts near their animals. Predators took livestock all too often, but youthful guardians learned they might fend off attackers with staffs or homemade pikes they made themselves by lashing knives to poles or branches.*
In the three terrible years of the Beast’s reign, some 200 people were attacked in a region of about 60-by-50 miles across this internal frontier of Old France. Perhaps more than one hundred were killed. Most of the attacks were on women or children. The Beast eschewed livestock to go directly for human prey. Most of the victims were partially devoured. Some were decapitated.
Not all attacks were successful. A young livestock tender named Jacques Portefaix defended his friends and fought off the beast with a handmade pike, earning royal accolades, an all-expenses paid education and a military position as an adult. Marie-Jeanne Valet battled the Beast with a pike and won, leaving it wounded, in an epic struggle in August 1765, which has been commemorated in a famous statue.
The spate of killings caught the attention of the burgeoning print media of the era, and thus the attention of King Louis XV, who was not much of a monarch, but who was a keen hunter. He offered a massive reward for the killing of the Beast, and commissioned several professional hunters to accomplish the mission. Massive hunts brought no success.
Then, in 1766, the King’s Gunbearer, the Royal Lieutenant of the Hunt, one François Antoine, killed a huge wolf, which was stuffed and sent off to Versailles. Antoine was acclaimed the slayer of the Beast. But the killings didn’t stop.
On June 19, 1767, a Gévaudan innkeeper and noted woodsman named Jean Chastel encountered the Beast — another wolf — during a hunt organized by the Marquis d’Apcher. Chastel, in his 50s, was a pious Catholic (which in rural France meant that he was also attuned to the older, pagan spirit of the land). He was armed with a long double-barreled shotgun. His ammunition — purportedly silver balls — had been blessed in advance of the hunt. Chastel’s fire broke the Beast’s shoulder and ripped out its throat. The hunter watched the gleaming eyes dim and pronounced the doom of the dread Beast of Gévaudan:
“Beast, you shall hunt no more.”
Jean Chastel, credited with slaying the second of two Beasts.
Jean Chastel’s shotgun was exceedingly long of barrel, with an intricately carved stock.
At the time of the Beast, the shotgun was a flintlock. It was converted to percussion in the early 19th century, indicating that it was in use long after its most famous wielder.
*
Were either of the wolves actually the Beast? What was this terrible bete féroce?
While the safe bet is on a wolf or wolves, there’s plenty of mystery surrounding the case.
The people of the Gévaudan knew wolves, and this was something of a different order — “like a wolf, but not a wolf” as several survivors described it. Theories abound. Some believe the Beast was an African lion, escaped from a nobleman’s menagerie. Or perhaps a hyena. Some believe the Beast was a trained wolf-dog hybrid, armored in boar skin and turned loose on the population by a sadistic killer.
Biologist Karl-Hans Taake, in a piece for the National Geographic Society, insists that the evidence — behavioral and descriptive — points to a sub-adult male lion.
About 95 percent of the carnivore attacks on humans in Gévaudan during the years 1764 to 1767 can be attributed to that single animal that was referred to as la bête: The Beast. There is no doubt that the remaining attacks were executed by rabid and non-rabid wolves. Wolves were a common species at that time and therefore easily recognized by the rural population…
…There can be no reasonable doubt that the Beast was a lion, namely a subadult male. The description of size, appearance, behaviour, strength – it all fits together: the comparison of size with a bovine animal; flat head; reddish fur; a dark line along the spine occasionally occurring in lions; spots on the sides of the body that appear especially in younger lions; a body that becomes conspicuously sturdier from the rear towards the front; a tail which appears to be strangely thin (since shorthaired); a tassel on the tail; enormous strength that allowed the animal to carry off adult humans and to split human skulls as well as to jump nine meters [30 feet]; the use of a rough tongue to scrape tissue from skulls so that these appeared as if they were polished; roaring calls described as terrible barking; a paw print of 16 centimeters [6 inches] length; using claws during an attack; attacking big ungulates by jumping on their backs; throttling victims, that is: killing by interrupting the air flow; a preference for the open country.
Hmm…
Cryptozoologists have their approach to Beastlore; perhaps the bete férouce was a relic species — a cave lion or cave hyena, a holdover from primordial Europe. And one can’t simply dismiss werewolves and shape-shifting warlocks…
Le Pacte des Loups — Brotherhood of the Wolf has its own take, which I won’t spoil for you in case — for some reason — you haven’t seen that wild, delicious, lurid cult classic.
That’s not the Beast, obviously, but Monica Bellucci is one of the many reasons to watch Le Pacte des Loups.
As for us Frontier Partisans — we’ll be content with the mystery. And we’ll keep our shotguns loaded with silver buckshot this Halloween. I thought I saw something slinking through the trees…
* Beast: Werewolves, Serial Killers & Man-Eaters — The Mystery of the Monsters of the Gévaudan, by Gustavo Sanchez Romero & S.R. Schwalb
Paul McNamee says
Nice.
I hope BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF gets a North American blu-ray release soon. The DVDs are out-of-print and haven’t come cheap now from what I’ve seen. There is a subtitled all region edition but I’m not sure I trust that.
Paul McNamee says
Another reason to watch BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF?
Watch Mark Dacascos as Mani in action and then imagine if they’d cast him as Bran Mak Morn at that time.
JimC says
Right? PERFECT!
Matthew says
Of topic, but I always thought the best person to play Solomon Kane would have been Clint Eastwood a few decades ago. I can just hear his voice growling, “Men will die for this!”
Paul McNamee says
Me, too. Visually a young Clint would have made a great Solomon Kane.
J.F. Bell says
I’d wondered who the half-dozen other people who’d seen Brother of the Wolf were. It follows a certain logic I’d run into most of them here.
As an aside, Monica Bellucci is a compelling reason to watch many, many things.
JimC says
Yep. It’s us. Like you say, it figures.
JimC says
Matthew says
At least one theory about the Beast that it was a surviving Dire Wolf.
France has become linked to Werewolves the way Transylvania is to vampires. Robert E. Howard wrote two stories about a French werewolf de Montour. The second “Wolfshead” is the best known (and happens in Africa.) Guy Endore wrote The Werewolf of Paris which dealt with a werewolf during the time of the Paris Commune. It was a very shocking novel even by today’s standards. It deals with incest, cannibalism, blood feuds et cetera. It’s worth reading though.
JimC says
Werewolf in the Commune sounds most intriguing…
Matthew says
I think I read it last year for Halloween. It’s probably the closest thing we have to a werewolf equivalent of Dracula by Bram Stoker. Endore was a communist and his reasons on why the Commune failed seem to me as being in the denial of the fact that communism doesn’t work. That said, as a horror novel it’s definitely worth reading.
Keith West says
I will have to add this book to the list.
Saddle Tramp says
Got some DEAD WOLF for ya…
This one from perhaps my favorite DEAD album WORKINGMAN’S DEAD. TR has the heavenly rooster whereas the GRATEFUL DEAD have a dire wolf:
https://youtu.be/UaStAAOUao8
JimC says
Yes!
Don’t murder me!
I beg of you, don’t murder me
Please – don’t murder me
lane batot says
Now was that another bit of sink-wren-awe-city er whut? Despite the natural temptation to imagine the “beast” as all manner of exotic critters, I think the conclusions in that masterful book I mentioned–“Monsters Of The Gevaudan; The Making Of The Beast” are most likely the correct ones–it were WOLVES! Perhaps wolf-hybrids, which would account for the somewhat unusual coloration, and larger-than-typical size of the two killed, from normal, local French wolves. It IS intriguing to ponder as to whether they had been raised and then released by humans–certainly possible, which could account for their lack of fear of humans. Yet(as this book and my own “research” has born out), wolves killing and eating humans throughout Europe was not particularly rare or unusual at this, and earlier time periods. And, as with many types of predators turned man-eater, they become incredibly bold and resourceful once they become accustomed to this new form of prey–predators LEARN and adapt to whatever prey they become accustomed to taking. The lion-theory sounds like hooey to me–no lion was ever killed to verify this, and it would have had to survive three very harsh northern European winters to have been responsible for the Beast of the Gevaudan’s many killings. The movie kinda went in that direction(sorta? Maybe? Hard to say WHAT that beast was in the end! But it was certainly human “modified”!) One thing the movie got right, in theme if not historically accurately, is a LOT of human politics got mixed up in the phenomenon, and we all know very well how THAT obscures and exaggerates “truth” out of all proportion!
JimC says
I KNEW we could count on you for some candid canid commentary.
lane batot says
…Another favorite book of mine is about another killer pack of wolves, led by the famous giant wolf “Cortaud”–“Cut-Tail”, because he had a bobbed tail, that historically literally laid siege to Paris during the 1400’s, attacking people and livestock coming and going from the then walled city. Written from the WOLVES” viewpoint, in a very realistic natural way, is Daniel Mannix’s superb animal novel “The Wolves Of Paris”. He made the pack leader a larger than normal wolf-hybrid too(though no one knows for sure). The years these incidents occurred were during the brutal 100 years war, where medieval battlefields, and disease epidemics sweeping the countryside, along with large game animals having been mostly exterminated by the massive royal “battues” hunts, were PRIME conditions for predators like wolves to learn to live off human corpses and turn to domestic stock, then living humans themselves. All this was realistically portrayed in this jewel of a “nature” book. The wolf pack actually invaded the city of Paris at one point during an especially harsh winter, the climax of the story. Some interesting factoids–the famous “Louvre” art museum is so named because it was built on ground that used to be outside the original defensive walls of Paris in an area where wolves had their dens–it means “wolf den”. And those holes you drilled in your doors in the old days to stick yer rifle barrel through to shoot from being called “loop holes”? That’s actually a “loup” hole, French for “wolf”!
JimC says
That is such excellent stuff.
Mannix sound most interesting.
The evidence would seem to be that the first Beast was a wolf and Chastel’s probably a wolf-dog hybrid, which would explain some of the unusual morphology, as Lane points out.
john roberts says
Mannix is a much-underrated novelist/documentarion. Much of the film “Gladiator” was drawn from his book, ” Those About to Die.”
lane batot says
I have several of Mannix’s books(mostly his nature novels), and I love them ALL–he(and his wife!) were quite the characters. Author/falconer Steve Bodio(of the “Querencia” blog) knew them(of course!)…..
JimC says
That’s a cool connection.
Matthew says
And we’ll keep our shotguns loaded with silver buckshot this Halloween.—
It’s probably the Beast of Gevaudan story that created the notion that werewolves could only be killed by a silver bullet. In previous folkore, regular leg lead worked fine. The novel The Hanging Stones by Manly Wade Wellman featuring Silver John has a more accurate to folklore werewolf in it.
JimC says
Love those stories.
lane batot says
Having roamed the woods at night with a pack of wolf hybrids for many years(I know I joke around a lot, but I REALLY HAVE done that!), I sorta became probably the closest actual equivalent to a werewolf as is realistically possible, and often(for fun) I considered what the REALITY behind the werewolf legends might be. The supposition regarding only SILVER bullets killing a werewolf, I decided was PARTIALLY true, but had nothing to do with any supernatural purity of the silver, but quite simply the EXPENSE! You see, anyone encountering a werewolf, even well armed, often experiences what is known as “werewolf fever” due to the excitement such an encounter engenders. And I can assure you, “werewolf fever” tends to have much more serious consequences than “buck fever”! HOWEVER, the human instincts involving ECONOMICS far outweigh even human SURVIVAL instincts. In a panic, lead bullets will fly all over the place, and hit just about everything EXCEPT the werewolf. But, BY GAWD–do you know how much a freakin’ SILVER bullet costs?????. You can BET YER BANK ACCOUNT(which counts for more than most people’s life) yer gonna make that silver bullet count, and aim steady and true! And, scary as you may consider it, I have quite a bit more TRUTHS ABOUT WEREWOLVES like this for anyone interested(ahem!)…….
JimC says
Further research is required. I suggest seeking a scholarship for a doctoral dissertation.
lane batot says
Docktoral dissertashuns have been done on a lot sillier things, that’s for sure–and less entertaining subjects, certainly! But I do not have the financial ability or political skill to seek such. Nor do I have the tolerance or patience to deal with most dyed-in-the-wool scientist personalities for extended periods(with a few, rare exceptions). The most I might accomplish might be a torturously pecked out Guest Post(ahem!) regarding my theories on Lycanthropy…….
JimC says
Oh, I’d take that in a heartbeat.
Saddle Tramp says
Another DEAD associated WOLF (and a rather expensive one at that) :
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/jerry-garcias-wolf-guitar-sells-for-19-million-w485198
JimC says
Well played, ST.
jeremy arion kidd says
the beast of gevaudan was a werewolf the werewolf form of Jacob Black from the Twilight Saga movie collection.
Charles SSprinkles says
This is where the legend of a silver bullet killing a werewolf began. Way before “Dracula” where Stoker said a vampire could be killed using a “Sacred Bullet” which many lit scholars believe that his meaning was a silver bullet, added fuel to this fire. I have no doubt that because of superstition and lore back then that a silver bullet was used to kill the huge wolf (not werewolf) for history has shown that the metal silver is used in many cases to warn off evil, even used in killing witches. As the Spanish Inquistion wrote about in its history. (Again, this is because of superstition, no reality to base it on.) That being said, I have no doubt that a silver bullet (ball) was used to bring down this over sized wolf. I am a historian, with a double masters in military history and global history. My two books I have written are “Shiloh The 1St. Day: Turning Point of the American Civil War,” and “FDR and High Treason at Pearl Harbor.” True history needs a platform.
JimC says
Welcome to the campfire.