The First Werewolf: The Beast of Gevaudan

The First Werewolf: The Beast of Gevaudan

The French werewolf legend to beat all others.

One of the least talked about and most interesting mythical creatures on the planet is the Beast of Gevaudan, a predatory animal that supposedly stalked the woods of Gevaudan in the 18th century, killing and devouring over 100 villagers in the area. The beast recently inspired a French film, Brotherhood of the Wolf, in which ninjitsu master French nobleman and a Native American transplant with cool tribal tattoos hunt down a big spiky pig-dog. The truth behind the Beast is somewhat more interesting and more provocative.

Between 1764 and 1776 in the South of France, a massive beast described as both wolf, panther, boar, and bear (but all agree it was the size of a horse) attacked and killed over 100 people. Nicknamed the Beast of Gevaudan for the Gevaudan Wood around which many of the attacks took place, the French King, King Louis XV (who laid the groundwork for the French Revolution), proclaimed a number of rewards and sent hunters to the forests to catch it. Several elaborate weapons and hunts were concocted, among private citizens as well as King Louis’ own men. One, a dragoon captain, even organized a hunt comprised of 20,000 citizens in the region to find the beast. Although he never did, he managed to incite a panic with his constant communications to local papers.

Francois Antoine, the royal gun-bearer, managed to hunt down and kill a 6-foot long wolf that many considered to be the Beast itself. However, shortly thereafter more attacks ensued and others were sent to the forests of Gevaudan. Jean Chastel, a legendary figure in werewolf mythology, was also credited with taking down an enormous wolf. Once killed (some say with a silver bullet), the wolf’s stomach was found to have rotten human remains inside.

Though the legends of the Beast of Gevaudan went largely ignored for a couple hundred years, they largely gave rise to mythology around werewolves, which have seen a kind of resurgence in popular media today. At the time, Jean-Baptiste Duhamel, a French chaplain, served to stoke fear of the Beast by characterizing it as a sign of God’s anger. However, many scholars agree that Duhamel’s motives were largely political, designed to recoup lost honor from a number of defeats during the Seven years War.

Though no one knows for certain what the Beast was, or whether it will ever return, there have been a number of theories. One of the most plausible, which was actually used to explain the Lock ness Monster, is a time-displaced animal. Much like the Loch ness Monster seemed closely aligned to the appearance of an aquatic dinosaur of the Pleistocene, the Beast of Gevaudan resembles the Mysonychids of the Paleocene Era, a hyena-like predator roughly the size of a horse.