Beast

by S. R. Schwalb

  With Philips’s influence, Romasanta’s condemnation was reduced to life imprisonment. He was said to have died soon after in prison at Allariz. However, we now know he was transferred to another prison, but which one? In 2011, during a “Manuel Blanco Romasanta Symposium” held in Allariz, Felix Castor and Vicente Castro, researchers from Ourense, Galicia, presented evidence, such as newspaper stories published in La Iberia a Liberal Journal and The Journal for All, both from Madrid, stating that Romasanta died from stomach cancer in 1863 in a prison in Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast.

  But what caused Romasanta to commit so many crimes? The family curse? Insanity? Possession? Or something else? Spanish researcher and writer Luis García Mañá, author of the only Galician werewolf physiognomic reconstruction, based on Romasanta’s historical forensic examination, suspects the answer may be in the food. It turns out that Spain in the mid-nineteenth century experienced persistent rainfall, resulting in poor harvests and crop loss due to harmful fungus growth. The Civil Governor of Orense alerted the public about the risks of food poisoning, specifically referring to rye ergot, Claviceps purpurea, a parasitic fungus, and the basis from which lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD or LSD-25, a potent hallucinogenic drug, is synthesized. Mañá concludes that “Romasanta revealed symptoms consistent with the ingestion of hallucinogenic mushrooms and under the influence of ergot could have killed the victims. This theory may be more or less assumed or discussed.”

  Historical photograph of another Spanish serial killer, Juan Díaz de Garayo Ruiz de Argandoña (1821–1881), alias Sacamantecas. He would remove victims’ body fat to produce a certain “ointment.”

  Real-Life Lycan Serial Killers: A Wolf Boy and a Wild Man of France

  In this next section we provide short biographies and accompanying data on two famous serial murderers, showing clear connections with Romasanta. The cases referred to are among the most famous of those recorded in France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Both of these persons confessed to having committed horrible murders while they were transformed as wolves, or while wearing the skins and/or other parts of a wolf. Their cases, too, may be linked to remote rural environments and impoverished backgrounds. Could some of the deaths allegedly perpetrated by the Beast of Gévaudan be connected with a human through the demonstration of psychological characteristics or a similar anatomy to what we are seeing? This may be part of the riddle that we are trying to solve.

  The Case of Jean Grenier, French Wolf Boy

  Our first case is unique because the phenomenon of transformation associated with wolves and skins smeared with magic potions knows no particular age. Jean Grenier, a real-life French boy, was exposed to this phenomenon from an early age: “When I was 10 or 11 years old,” Grenier said, “my neighbor, Duthillaire, introduced me, in the depths of the forest, to a M. de la Forest, a black man, who signed me with his nail, and then gave to me and Duthillaire a salve and a wolf-skin. From that time have I run about the country as a wolf.”

  For this youth, the “black man,” whom he also called “Lord of the forest,” was the devil himself, a being who had shackled Grenier with a great and horrifying curse: the ability to transform himself into a fearsome beast, and, in that form, commit terrible crimes. Grenier would later admit that, craving human flesh, especially that of little girls, he had devoured more than thirty children. He openly stated that he searched the countryside until he identified a vulnerable, unattended victim. Then he hid within the shadows of the woods until he attacked and killed the child. Afterward, he would take the body to a remote location and consume the remains. Area officials confirmed the corresponding disappearances of children in many of these locations. Grenier’s story is well documented in The Book of Were-Wolves by cleric and scholar Sabine Baring-Gould (1834–1924):

  Jean had often told her [Marguerite Poirier] that he had sold himself to the devil, and that he had acquired the power of ranging the country after dusk, and sometimes in broad day in the form of a wolf. He had assured her that he had killed and devoured many dogs, but that he found their flesh less palatable than the flesh of little girls, which he regarded as a supreme delicacy. He had told her that this had been tasted by him not infrequently but he had specified only two instances: in one he had eaten as much as he could, and thrown the rest to a wolf, which had come up during the repast. In the other instance he had bitten to death another little girl, had lapped her blood, and, being in a famished condition at the time, had devoured every portion of her, with the exception of the arms and shoulders.

  Eventually, fourteen-year-old Grenier stood trial in June 1603. The court found that the youth was essentially “feral,” having experienced throughout his short lifetime abuse, neglect, and malnutrition. Physically, the boy was hairy, had fingernails like talons, seemed oblivious to his surroundings, presented “physical developmental delays and cultural incompetence,” and “was incapable of rational thought because of a disorganized brain.”

  Jean was imprisoned for life at a nearby cloister, where, initially, he behaved as a wild animal. His incarceration did not better his condition: As the years went by, Grenier remained small in size, was inarticulate, seemed muddled in his thinking, was ill at ease or totally withdrawn around people. He continued to insist that he was a werewolf. He died seven years later.

  ***

  After reading this account, questions arise: What could have driven young Grenier to commit such crimes? Witchcraft, diabolical possession, or bestial transformation? Lycanthropy? Terrible hallucinations? A true loup-garou? And what about his physical appearance? How could we explain these odd behaviors and features satisfactorily?

  To some historians, medical professionals, and researchers, Grenier’s strange appearance may have been attributed to a metabolic disorder that causes an unusual illness known as porphyria.

  This rare congenital disorder is characterized by extreme sensitivity to light. A subject’s exposure to sunlight causes vesicular (blistered) reddening of skin, itching, scarring, and hypertrichosis, or abnormal excessive hair growth, as well as reddish-brown urine, reddish-brown teeth, and ulcers that destroy cartilage and bone, causing the deformation of the nose, ears, eyelids, and fingers through progressive mutilation. Mental aberrations, such as hysteria, manic-depressive psychosis, epilepsy, and delirium, also characterize this condition.

  Clinical neurologist L. Illis argues that the physical deformities, in conjunction with psychopathology and nocturnal wandering due to photosensitivity, plus hypertrichosis, could be mistaken as evidence of lycanthropy and vampirism. In ancient times, these symptoms would be accompanied by physical and social mistreatment by community members, who would instinctively explain the subject’s appearance in terms of witchcraft, satanic possession, and the like.

  The condition seems to include a geographic factor. Many cases occur in Switzerland and Sweden (also known for historic reports of werewolves) in certain districts and valleys.

  Should we also include some French regions?

  The Wild Man

  The case of Gilles Garnier, the “Wild Man of Saint-Bonnot, France” is perhaps even more interesting than the events surrounding young Grenier’s case, due to two important factors: Garnier, who also mentioned his wolfish transformations, was an adult, and his attacks occurred at about the same time and in the vicinity in which a great wolf apparently beheaded and mutilated several children.

  In this sense the parallels are even more relevant to the events in the Gévaudan: As has been discussed, perhaps an animal and a human beast were responsible for the killings. We believe it is crucial to address and understand this as part of the mystery of the Beast of the Gévaudan, offering the reader explanations from multiple angles.

  Before we relate the activities of this alleged murderer-wolf from Lyon, we must pinpoint the location in which he lived: Armanges, near the city of Dole, France, an area harassed by packs of wolves at the time. Summers here are short and winters long, with limited prey. At th
e time of Garnier, wolves became increasingly bold, approaching villages, towns, and even larger urban areas. The real fear of these threatening animal predators, combined with ancient superstitions and the word “werewolf,” caused a furor, especially in small hamlets and among isolated populations. Accounts circulated of an enormous “murderer” wolf terrorizing Armanges, in the vicinity of Dole, near Gilles Garnier’s dwelling place, deep in the woods of Saint-Bonnot.

  Apparently the canid targeted children; some victims’ recovered remains exhibited the terrible marks of a predator’s jaws. The year was 1572 and for Garnier, who’d recently settled in the area with his wife, this was bad news. But why? Garnier was apparently ostracized by the community because he had no real occupation, begging to support his family, and living as a “wild hermit” in a hut made of battered tree limbs. Further, like our Wolf Boy, he, too, seemed antisocial and locals reported that he suffered from serious mental or psychological disorders. His strange appearance, as described in the following passage, was also a cause of concern:

  The man, Gilles Garnier, was a somber, ill-looking fellow, who walked in a stooping attitude, and whose pale face, livid complexion, and deep-set eyes under a pair of coarse and bushy brows, which met across the forehead, were sufficient to repel any one from seeking his acquaintance. Gilles seldom spoke, and when he did it was in the broadest patois of his country. His long grey beard and retiring habits procured for him the name of the Hermit of Saint-Bonnot, though no one for a moment attributed to him any extraordinary amount of sanctity.

  The cases that link Garnier to the murder of children can be summarized as follows:

  In August 1572, Garnier took a boy of twelve or thirteen near a forest, intending to eat him, but was interrupted by several men. Unfortunately the boy was already dead. The men stated that Grenier did not have the appearance of a wolf.

  In September, “in the form of a wolf,” Garnier attacked and killed a girl of ten or twelve in a vineyard, using teeth and claws. He moved her body to a wooded area, consumed most of it, and, because the poor victim was so enjoyable, he “brought some of the flesh home for his wife Apolline.”

  Peasants heard screams and howling coming from a wood on the eighth of November; they found a child, a girl, fighting off a “monstrous creature,” which ran off into the dark forest. Some thought it a wolf, others the hermit.

  On November 14, not far from Dole, France, Garnier, in the guise of a wolf, supposedly throttled a ten-year-old boy and ate him, even tearing away one of his legs.

  ***

  What were the reasons for these attacks? Simply hunger—the need to satiate his own, and his wife’s, appetites? A psychological condition perhaps associated with malnutrition, as some have suggested? Or were his actions driven by some kind of demonic possession? Finally, what was the “mechanism” by which Garnier, as a wolf, committed the crimes? Historical records provide a revealing account:

  Mr. Daniel d’Ange, then dean of the church of Sens, commented on the report of the trial of Garnier: Gilles Garnier, a lycanthrope (man-wolf), as I like to call him, lived a hermit’s life until one day, having taken a wife and not having the means to feed a family, he took the habit, being bold and desperate, of exploring the woods and wild places. This is where one day he met a ghost in human form who told him that he could perform miracles. He claimed he could teach him the art of metamorphosing into wolf, lion, or leopard. Since the wolf is the most common animal in these regions, Garnier chose the wolf. He disguised himself in this animal, took shape through some ointment, committing all the terrible things he confessed before his death and recognizing the horror of his actions.

  The shadow of the loup-garou loomed large in medieval France. The outrage caused by Garnier’s case was such that a royal decree was issued stating that villagers from Dole and its surrounding areas could deliberately hunt and kill any “local werewolf” without written permission.

  Garnier, found guilty of the crimes of lycanthropy and witchcraft, was burned at the stake on January 18, 1573.

  End Thoughts: Criminals and Sadists in the Gévaudan?

  The district of Gévaudan, located in what is currently the French departement of Lozère, was an isolated and inhospitable region in the time of the Beast. The economy was practically reduced to the subsistence labor of a small population in a poor rural environment. It was difficult to make a living and unemployment was high.

  Suddenly, with the appearance of the Beast, the region became more dynamic. Functionaries, villagers, and the servants of local feudal lords were now involved in planning and carrying out organized hunts. The tempting rewards offered by the state and by local authorities for the hide of the murderous Beast created an influx of newcomers incentivized to try their luck. All kinds of individuals made the rounds of places like Mende, Le Malzieu, Saint-Chély-d’Apcher, Saugues, and Le Puy-en-Velay, thrilled for such a challenge, itching to bring down this formidable animal. They were of course not just thinking about the reward money, but the fame that would come with the elimination and “unmasking” of such a mysterious adversary.

  Peasants and laborers were on the move as well, seeking employment as trackers or as simply serving as support for the troops stationed in the area. There were also outlaws, vagrants, mercenaries, and foreigners who were unemployed and desperate, in hopes of exploiting the situation. Local administrative and legal bodies, trying to deal with the chaos, were over-taxed by the wave of crime. Royal troops were sent to crack down on myriad offenders who settled in the region (lower Vivarais, east of Gévaudan, and also the northern portions, localities like Le Malzieu and Marvejols). Funding was provided to areas where criminality became so endemic that, more than a century later, in 1876, the courts’ expansion in Le Puy-en-Velay (resulting from the number of legal matters from neighboring Gévaudan) was the subject of study.

  Reconstruction of the terrifying creature of the 2001 film Le Pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) in which a trained armored animal was responsible, at the hands of its master, for a series of attacks in eighteenth-century France.

  Further, groups of armed hunters were abundant everywhere. They were to be controlled and their firearms registered in Mende. No one could be in the region with arms without a certificate. “There would be reason to fear that, under pretext of these hunts, some ill-intentioned foreigners, or even some locals, would spread out in bands and commit crimes.”

  A Trained Animal?

  Many authors and researchers have discussed possible connections between the murders of children and women in the Gévaudan with the actions of a sadistic madman. And because the Beast supposedly specialized in this particular type of victim (although the number of adult males attacked or threatened in some way was also high, more than one hundred thirty-five, compared to one hundred twenty-four women), the parallelism is even greater.

  Close-up of the bone mask that enclosed the head of the Beast of the Gévaudan in the French film Le pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf) with a big cat (lion, tiger, etc.) skull for comparison.

  In the early 1900s, medical doctor Paul Puech was the first to advance such a connection. Puech believed cases exhibiting characteristics of mutilation and sexual assault indicated human, not animal, intervention. He wrote that such macabre murders exonerated a “zoological” beast, and drew attention to the possibility that, owing to the ubiquity of the killings, several people may have been involved. For Puech, the Beast never existed. Instead, the killings were murders, the work of a sadistic madman, aided by henchmen disguised in animal skins. But what of the descriptions of many witnesses, who stated they saw large wolf-type beasts? We also have expert hunters identifying large canids in the countryside. And what of the vicious bites observed on the bodies of the victims?

  Marguerite Aribaud-Farrère offers similar identification in her La Bête du Gévaudan identifiée (described in our Foreword), the cover of which shows a man wearing a wolfskin costume with a wolf’s head. The individual wearing this attire is
identified as an Parisian aristocrat, the Marquis de Sade.

  After subjecting the pattern of killings to a complicated computer program that still leaves some loose ends, cryptozoologist Jean-Jacques Barloy, author of The Beast of Gévaudan Unmasked, holds that the murderers were two adult males acting in tandem, individuals who trained and handled strange beasts to carry out the attacks. This hypothesis was also adapted by film director Christophe Gans for his 2001 film Le Pacte des loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf).

  CHAPTER 21

  Other Contenders: Prehistoric and Exotic Species

  Some said La Bête was only wolves being more carnivorous than usual, while others, and this was the majority, said she was something very unusual and nobody knew how to destroy her.

  —Abbé Pierre Pourcher

  Members of prehistoric, introduced, and exotic species, owing to their unique characteristics, have been associated with the Beast. Some of these candidates could come from the pages of a thick volume on European vertebrate paleontology or the illustrations from a field guide on tropical carnivores.

  Following is a review of various carnivore species that display similarities of one kind or another to the fabled animal or animals of the Gévaudan. Some were connected to the Beast and its frightful activities by eyewitnesses; other were represented graphically in historical documents of the time.

  We will begin with a few candidates from prehistory and move on to other “suspects.”

  Prehistoric Bear-Dog (Amphicyon giganteus)

  This huge and fearsome creature, more than eight feet in length, possessed the body of a bear and the head of a dog. Some in this group weighed up to 500 kilograms, more than half a ton. The bear-dog was distributed throughout Europe. Fossils have been found in France. However, this creature was extinct in the Miocene, about seven million years ago.