Judge de Lancre was taken aback by the boy’s odd appearance. He described Grenier as having glittering, deep-set eyes, long black fingernails and sharp, protruding teeth and who walked on all fours much more easily than he could walk upright. The strange youth, just as he had always done, freely confessed to the startled judge that he still craved human flesh, especially the sweet meat of plump young children. Grenier was one of only a very few accused werewolves who managed to escape the executioner’s axe and died in confinement years later.
A huge population of werewolves was said to have plagued the town of Griefswald Germany around the year 1640. Hunting in packs, they prowled freely about the countryside killing and devouring humans by night. They were fearsome beasts but were eventually destroyed by a group of brave students who allegedly shot the creatures dead with silver bullets they had made by melting down buttons and buckles.
The Beast of Gevaudan
Perhaps the best-known werewolf account from ages past is the tale of the ‘Beast of Gevaudan,’ an especially horrible hirsute inhumanoid which ravaged the citizenry of France and feasted on the hearts of children between the years 1764 and 1767. This nightmare of an inhumanoid was said to walk on two legs, was covered in dark, shaggy hair and had a pig-like snout and pointed ears. It was responsible for numerous deaths, most of them children, in several villages throughout the region of Le Gevaudan in south-central France, partially due to the fact that the primary function of most of the children of this rugged mountain country was to watch over the family flocks, thus making them easy targets for the murderous monster.
The beast made its first appearance, and claimed its first victim, near the village of Saint Etienne-de-Lugdares where, in July 1764, a young girl was found with her heart ripped from her chest. The following week five more children from nearby villages were found dead; all of them with their hearts torn from their little bodies and, presumably, eaten. Families immediately, and wisely, pulled the herds and children from the summer pastures. At this time, no one had yet seen the cause of their terrible affliction. But that was soon to change.
Jean-Pierre Pourcher, a peasant farmer living near the village of Zulianges, was the first to see the creature, and even managed to get off a shot at it in September 1764, to no effect of course. He had observed the bizarre-looking beast at dusk as it shuffled along the road and later described it as being as big as a donkey with reddish hair and powerful legs. After this the monster allegedly grew much braver, stalking the countryside daily and leaving a horrible trail of fear and death in its wake. It became so bold that it even began attacking groups of people in broad daylight, with survivors describing the same ferocious man-wolf entity.
A few months later it attacked a group of children in the village of Chanaleilles, mauling and killing two of them. Jean Panafieux, a small child, was among the group when the werewolf rushed upon them and snatched him from their midst. He was dead in seconds. Another member of the group, a teenaged boy named Andre Portefaix, bravely tried to rescue Jean’s body by attacking the beast with a pitchfork. Inspired by his courage, the other boys grabbed sticks and joined in the struggle, eventually driving the beast away but not before another member of the group had been killed as well.
On January 15th, 1765, the body of another fourteen-year-old boy, Jean Chateauneuf, was found on the mountain slope where he had been tending the family’s goat herd. His father had gone out looking for Jean and had discovered him lying dead with his heart ripped from his chest and his blood drained. Heartbroken, Chateauneuf carried his son’s mutilated body back home. That same evening the beast appeared at the grieving father’s window, and leered at him from the darkness, as if finding great pleasure in the sight of the poor man’s grief. An alarm was raised but no one could follow the beast’s trail in the darkness.
Public outcry ensued. The villagers had had enough. According to some authorities, over one hundred people had already lost their lives to the fearsome beast. An emissary was sent to the winter court at Versailles to entreat King Louis XV to send soldiers to try and capture or kill the monster and end the curse. A company of soldiers was then dispatched to Le Gavaudan, under a Captain Duhamel, to hunt the creature down. They reached the area in February and immediately began their hunt.
On February 6th, they reportedly happened upon the beast’s large, human-like footprints in the snow and tracked the creature to a dense thicket where they spied a dark figure moving around therein and fired five shots at it. A terrible howl arose from the brush, as if at least one musket ball had found its mark. The monster fled and the soldiers were distracted from pursuit by the discovery of the half-eaten body of a young girl who had gone missing some time earlier.
The killings seemed to stop after that. Duhamel, satisfied that the creature had ran off and died from its wounds, concluded that their mission was accomplished and the company of soldiers went home. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t over. A month after the soldiers’ departure, the killings resumed. Had the monster recovered from its wounds, or had it just lain low until the troops had left? In any event, the creature was again on the prowl and, once again, no one was safe either by day or night.
As the months passed the body count continued to rise. Now over two hundred people had lost their lives to the “Beast of Le Gevaudan.” Surely, if ever there was one, this was a beast straight from hell. If the thing could not be killed by musket fire then what were they to do? Townsfolk had become so frightened of the creature that no one would even dare shoot at it; even though it had presented itself as an easy target numerous times.
Farmers and villagers alike began abandoning the area for other provinces in order to avoid becoming victims of the werewolf themselves. As the body count surpassed 200, a second plea was sent to Versailles, but it went unanswered, leaving the people helpless and the beast free to continue its bloody campain throughout the entire year of 1766 and into 1767.
A long overdue second expedition was then dispatched, this time headed by the King’s personal gun-bearer, Antoine, to Le Gevaudan. While still en route this man shot a large wolf and immediately returned to the comforts of the royal court, parading the carcass about and claiming it was the Beast of Gevaudan.
Satisfied that the affair was over and no more of his loyal subjects would be killed, Louis called an official end to the werewolf hunt. It was only then that the remaining villagers realized that they were “officially” on their own, and did what they should have done at the very offset.
A party of hunters and villagers gathered by the Marquis d’Apcher was organized into a posse in June of 1767, whose members vowed not to disband until the real beast was killed. On June 19th they succeeded in tracking the monster down and surrounding it in the open woods at Le Sogne d’Auvert. A group of brave men entered the woods with the intentions of flushing out the monster, but they would be robbed of their quarry, for it had evidently circled back around them unseen.
In the end, an elderly farmer named Jean Chastel earned a place in French history by shooting and killing the beast. He had been nervously reading from his prayer book, he said, his double-barreled fowling piece loaded with specially molded silver pellets leaning against a tree, when the beast charged from the woods straight for him. He shot it in the chest with both barrels at nearly point blank range and, at last, the Beast of Gevaudan was dead. Or was it?
The carcass of a huge wolf was then paraded through the villages of the region, which did seem to signify a definite end to the brutal killings in the area, even though none of the survivors of the beast’s previous attacks had described an ordinary wolf, however large, as the attacker. The dead wolf was a far cry from the shaggy-haired inhumanoid beast with a pig-like snout and pointed ears that eyewitnesses described. And, as usual in cases of alleged inhumanoid remains, the body of the “beast” never made it back to Versailles to be recognized by academia. Rapidly decomposing in the summer heat and smelling rather badly, the men in charge of transporting the bea
st claimed to have buried it and no subsequent attempt to recover the skeletal remains ever took place.
A similar, though more solitary, werewolf was blamed for killing and mutilating livestock on a farm in Gresford, Wales during the winter of 1791. It left huge tracks in the snow and much bloody carnage in its wake, including the ravaged carcasses of sheep, cattle and even the farmers dog! But its bloodlust was insatiable and the terrifying inhumanoid returned soon afterwards, hungry for human flesh, lying in wait until the man came outside.
Fortunately, the farmer spotted the creature and was able to run and lock himself inside his barn before it could reach him. He was horrified, however, when the thing approached the barn on its hind legs and peered at him through the cracks as it pounded angrily on the door. Eventually it seemed to give up and disappeared into the night. The man later described the thing much like the typical werewolf; black in color and foaming at the mouth. When word of the encounter spread the creature soon came to be known as the ‘Gresford Beast.’
In Germany in 1831 a werewolf-like creature was said to roam around the Zarnow region. Many cattle were found mutilated in that year and at least one family lost a child to the beast, found ripped to pieces in the woods. Townspeople thought it was the work of a large wolf at first. Until they came face to face with it and saw that it was a wolf all right; a wolf which walked and stood on its hind legs and carried a large club in its human-like hands. It shrieked at the group, which then scattered in all directions. And who could blame them?
The were-beasts of Malaysia, the Santu-sakai, made an appearance in the late 1960s. A lone hunter allegedly encountered two of these beings while on a trek through the forests near Kuala Lumpur. The hunter considered himself lucky to have made it back, no doubt, considering the hairy, sharp-fanged beasts were reputed to constantly suffer a strong craving for human flesh.
On December 14th, 1971, in the Southern Australia town of Waikerle, two male witnesses, Tome Yates and Glen Schiller spotted a weird-looking aerial craft while playing a few rounds on the local golf course that evening. Deciding to investigate, they drove their golf-cart to edge of the woods, parked and got out. It was then that they saw what they described as a floating, dog-headed humanoid figure with a small mouth and pointed ears standing in the woods. It was over six feet-tall, they claimed, and covered in brown fur. When it began to ‘glide’ toward them, feet not touching the ground, they realized that it had been ‘hovering’ there, not standing. Not surprisingly, the would-be investigators beat a hasty retreat.
In 1980, two boys out for a walk in the woods of King’s Nympton, UK, were startled to see a creature straight out of some terrible nightmare; a huge beast they described as being gorilla-like, very muscular and covered with hair; but with a muzzled face like a dogs. The beast looked at them with glowing green eyes before they hastily made their escape.
Another werewolf /Dogman sighting took place at the US Air Force ammunition depot in Morbach, Germany in 1988. Something triggered the motion-sensors on the perimeter fence at the base one evening and, on investigating, a security guard came face to face with a large, wolf-like beast standing on two legs near the fence. On being spotted the creature ran, still on its hind legs, and jumped completely over the nine foot-tall fence with amazing ease. The nearby town of Witlich was allegedly cursed with a werewolf ages ago during the Napoleonic era.
Like every other country, Israel also has legends of shapeshifters and skinwalkers. One urban legend which is, curiously, not found in other countries like America, centers around these creatures’ fondness for hitching rides and frightening unwary travelers out of their wits.
On October 14th, 1996 at Jenin, West Bank, a motorist claimed that he’d picked up just such a hitchhiker. Only seconds after the normal looking fellow got in the vehicle the driver was horrified to see him transform into a darkly clothed humanoid with a dog-like head, long, floppy ears and only one eye. Thoroughly alarmed, the driver skidded to a halt and fled from the car. Once he’d put what he thought was a safe distance between himself and his abandoned vehicle he looked back and saw the dog-headed inhumanoid emerge, walk slowly towards him a few step; then simply vanish into thin air!
In the mid-1990s it was reported from southern Ahmedabad, India that a huge beast had attacked and injured nearly twenty people from Jashodanar-Vatwa and Isanpur, a rampage which left them hospitalized at the Maninagar LG Hospital suffering from a variety of physical and emotional wounds. The creature was said to have been wolf-like, but walked on two legs like a man. The locals were so terrified that nightly vigils were formed to stay on the look-out for it. They waited with axes, spears and any other weapon they could manage, but the werewolf had wrought its carnage and disappeared back into the twilight-zone. A few years later another hirsute inhumanoid would appear in India to terrorize and attack citizens, only described as diminutive and wearing a helmet.
South America has had its own share of recent lycanthropic reports. Scott Corrales, editor of Inexplicata: The Journal of Hispanic Ufology, writes in the October 2000 issue of Fate magazine about a series of bizarre werewolf encounters beginning in 1993. In July of that year two young women were reportedly assaulted by the ‘Lobizon’ in the town of Rivera, just north of the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo. The first woman escaped with a torn dress and deep claw marks about her breasts. The second victim was “shamed” by the beast in an apparent sexual assault.
On March 14th, 1995, another Lobizon reportedly attacked a well-known soccer player, Dourado de Paula, after he left a family reunion near Tres Lagos (Matto Grosso do Sul). The incident was also witnessed by two of De Paula’s friends who described the creature as six and a half feet tall and entirely covered with black hair. It also had red eyes and a pointed tail. De Paula was able to drive off the werewolf by striking it with a stone after it had nearly succeeded in grabbing him.
According to Corrales, the werewolf surfaced again on October 7th, 1996, this time in a rural area just outside of Sao Paulo. The beast was seen by two witnesses who claimed that it looked like a large dog walking on its hind legs, with large black eyes, long fangs, and covered in thick yellow fur. A farmer allegedly found strange, clawed footprints at the scene which were thirteen inches long and “deeply etched into dry, hardened soil.” A later analysis of the prints suggested that whatever made them had weighed around 440 pounds.
American Werewolves
Could it be that early European settlers of the American colonies, having brought along their stories and superstitions from the old country, are responsible for the many werewolf legends that have sprung up over the last three hundred years or so in America? The answer is no. Certainly the intrepid early settlers of this great nation are guilty of carrying on their occult beliefs, using whatever name which was common to their heritage, and perpetuating the legends of their homelands; but tales of evil, shape-shifting werewolves, or Skinwalkers, were already well-known by the many native Indian tribes who made this country their home for thousands of years before the first white man stepped foot on her beautiful shores. And here they remain in all their terrifying glory.
Skinwalkers
Just as every other culture in the world has its legends of evil shape-shifting witches and sorcerers, the folklore of the Native North American Indians is replete with such beings as well. The Navajos call them Skinwalkers and they are still considered extremely dangerous to encounter and, at the very least, omens of impending ill luck. According to Navajo legend, the Skinwalker is an evil witch who can physically transform himself, or herself, whichever the case may be, into the shape of an animal, most commonly a wolf or coyote, solely for the purpose of doing evil unto others.
One can easily spot the difference between a Skinwalker and an ordinary animal, it is said, by their evil glowing eyes and ability to walk upright. Most cases involve sightings by lone travelers driving sown isolated stretches of rural roads in the night, but they are not limited to nighttime activities and can appear at any time of day or n
ight. Even more telling is the fact that some witnesses report that the monsters they observed were wearing human clothing.
In ‘Flying Saucer Occupants,’ Coral and Jim Lorenzon related a story told to them by a friend who claimed that she saw a strange ‘animal’ one evening while motoring along at an unnamed location. At around midnight on June 9, 1960, the headlights had illuminated a little, broad-shouldered figure with long arms beside the road. It had no mouth, nose or ears, she claimed, on its “pumpkin-shaped head.” What struck her most of all, however, was the creature’s glowing, yellow-orange eyes. A similar creature was seen in Arizona in the fall of 1965, by Roger Heath, who later related the account to Loren Coleman:
“I was driving north from Winslow, Arizona toward the three mesas of the Hopi villages...in the vicinity of Little Jedito Wash, I saw what I first thought was a man charred from an auto wreck crawling from a wash onto the road. I realized almost at once that it would have to be an awfully small man with long arms. I had a gun, an over and under, in the car. I stopped...rolled down my window, poked the gun out...turned around and went back. I saw this thing in a kind of hand scramble headed out the same side...from where I assumed it had come. I did not fire.”
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