Brotherhood of the Wolf
2002
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Jun 19, 2019 · The Beast in a print by M. Ray — Source. By the winter of 1764–1765, the attacks in the Gévaudan had created a national fervor, to the point that King Louis XV intervened, offering a reward equal to what most men would have earned in a year. Tens of thousands of hunters descended on the region. King Louis also deployed a dragoon captain ...
June 26, 2017. The beast of Gévaudan terrorized French villagers for three years, killing around 100 and injuring nearly 300. Wikimedia Commons. The monster’s first victim was Jeanne Boulet, a ...
- 'Like A Wolf, Yet Not A Wolf'
- King Louis XV Dispatches Hunters
- Large Wolf Is Shot by King’s Gunbearer
- Description and Behavior of The Beast
- Beast Theories
- Striped Hyena?
- Lion?
- A Wolf?
The first recorded fatal attack of the Beast occurred on June 30, 1764 when a 14-year-old shepherdess, Jeanne Boulet, tended a flock of sheep. Boulet was not the creature’s first victim. As historian Jay M. Smith writes in Monsters of the Gévaudan, about two months prior, a young woman tending cattle was attacked by a creature “like a wolf, yet not...
Even children were celebrated for taking on the Beast. On January 12, 1765, the Beast attacked10-year-old Jacques Portefaix and a group of seven friends ranging from ages eight to 12. However, Portefaix led a counterattack with sticks driving off the creature. The children were rewarded by Louis XV, and Portefaix was given an education paid by the ...
On September 20, 1765, Francois Antoine, the king’s 71-year-old gunbearer, and his nephew shot a large wolf near an abbey at Chazes which was assumed to be the Beast. Antoine was awarded with money and titles and the corpse of the animal was stuffed and sent to the royal court. But attacks started again in December, according to an account in the 1...
The Beast was consistently described by eyewitnesses as something other than a typical wolf. It was as large as a calf or sometimes a horse. Its coat was reddish gray with a long, strong panther-like tail. The head and legs were short-haired and the color of a deer. It had a black stripe on its back and “talons” on its feet. Many drawings of the Be...
Historians, scientists, pseudoscientists and conspiracy theorists have all proposed theories about what the Beast was. Among the suspects: a Eurasian wolf, an armored war dog, a striped hyena, a lion, some kind of prehistoric predator, a werewolf, a dog-wolf hybrid and a human. Of the candidates the most fanciful is the werewolf. Also unrealistic i...
Some depictions of the Beast—and the animal slain by Chastel—suggest it resembled a striped hyena. It is possible that a striped hyena may have been in a person’s private holding and then escaped. Since it was not native to France, it would have appeared unusual. However, striped hyenas are not known to attack humans.
Karl-Hans Taake, a biologist and author of The Gévaudan Tragedy: The Disastrous Campaign of a Deported ‘Beast,'argues the Beast may have been an immature male lion. Like the hyena, it is possible that a lion escaped from captivity. The Beast reportedly was an ambush hunter that seized prey by the neck and could possibly decapitate a victim. A lion,...
Among the theories considered most credible is that wolves perpetuated the attacks. As Smith tells Smithsonian, “Gévaudan had a serious wolf infestation.” He believes that large lone wolves were attacking individual communities across the region or that it was a wolf pack. Wolves are native to the region and had attacked humans before—some statisti...
- Joseph A. Williams
Nov 20, 2022 · The Beast of Gévaudan was really two schoolboys in a horse costume. This one’s just a personal theory of mine, but it does account for the varying physiological traits (the boys could have taken turns being the head). Alternatively, the Beast could have also been one or more humans behind a murderous hoax.
Apr 8, 2024 · Mysteries. 8 April 2024. In the mid-18th century, a shadow loomed over the French region of Gevaudan. The locals believed it was one cast not by man or nature, but by a monster that would become one of the most terrifying legends in French folklore. Some blamed a wild animal, perhaps a wolf. Others believed it to be of supernatural origin.
May 15, 2022 · In 18th-century France, the mysterious beast of Gevaudan terrorized the population of a rural region. The unsolved mystery of the beast’s true nature never ceases to fascinate, even today. In 1764, the soon-to-be-famous animal claimed its first victim; a woman attacked near Langogne in the South of France. This incident could have become just ...
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The Beast of Gévaudan (French: La Bête du Gévaudan, IPA: [la bɛt dy ʒevodɑ̃]; Occitan: La Bèstia de Gavaudan) is the historic name associated with a man-eating animal or animals that terrorized the former province of Gévaudan (consisting of the modern-day department of Lozère and part of Haute-Loire), in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France between 1764 and 1767.
