Loup-garou

“ Monsieur Sainte-Hélène surely knows that a loup-garou is a man-wolf."
"A man-wolf," mused the soldier. "But when a person is so afflicted, is he a man or is he a wolf?"
"It is not an affliction, monsieur; it is sorcery."
"I think you are right. Then the wretched man-wolf is past being prayed for?"
"If one should repent"—
"I don't repent anything," returned Sainte-Hélène; and Gaspard's jaw relaxed, and he had the feeling of pin-feathers in his hair. "Is he a man or is he a wolf?" repeated the questioner.
"The loup-garou is a man, but he takes the form of a wolf." ”

“ A wolf that can break the back of a full-grown collie at one snap of his jaws, and gallop off with the carcass as if it were a chipmunk, is about as undesirable a neighbor, in the night woods, as any loup-garou ever devised by the habitant’s excitable imagination. ”

“ In the region where I camped on a winter holiday the tracks of an enormous wolf had been seen at intervals for years past; the rumor of him was in every lumber camp, the fear of him in every village for fifty miles around. If a man vanished in the woods and was never seen again, what but the beast could have caught him and left no trace? At such a thought the Habitant would cross himself, hitch nearer the fire, and, if you were sympathetic, relate a blood-curdling tale of “mon frère Bawteese” or of “bonhomme Philorum” to prove that the loup-garou was still abroad, and terrible as ever. ”

“ Then began a struggle, the remembrance of which would sometimes, even years later, wake Couteau from sleep, sweating with terror.
It was like no fight he had ever had, nor was it like the wolf-hunts and boar-stickings in which he had taken part. The loup-garou fought with human intelligence, dodging Gil’s swordthrusts with the speed of light, and always, always, parrying for a leap at his throat, which, if successful, would mean an instant end to the battle.
Gil’s long sword was almost an impediment in that crowded space. ”

“ Just what kind of animal the Loup-garou might be, was somewhat difficult to ascertain. No one in our vicinity had ever seen him, and from all I could gather he seemed to be a strange sort of apocalyptic beast, gifted with horns, extraordinary force, and the especial enemy of mankind.
There was something almost uncanny in the way the peasants would look at one and lower their voices when speaking of this weird phenomenon, and presently from having suspected my innocent donkey, I began to wonder if I were not in the presence of some local popular superstition. ”

“ The trail of a wolf pack is never a dull trail, and at first I gave myself up to full enjoyment of it, here puzzling over a record that I could not understand, [247] there finding another so typical that at times I seemed to be trailing a band of roving dogs. Wolves do not blunder through a region; they are alive and inquisitive every moment, the youngsters especially. In this pack the loup-garou and a big female held together (it was the end of winter, near the mating season) , while the cubs and yearlings were continually going off on side tours of investigation. ”

“ She had never been outside the moorland—never even had seen a human soul before, except the falconers and Pelagie. She did not know how she had heard of Kerselec; perhaps the falconers had spoken of it. She knew the legends of Loup Garou and Jeanne la Flamme from her nurse Pelagie. She embroidered and spun flax. Her hawks and hounds were her only distraction. When she had met me there on the moor she had been so frightened that she almost dropped at the sound of my voice. ”

“ From the Anglo-Saxon word is derived Middle Latin guerulfus, Old French garou, whence by tautology Modern French loup-garou, ‘werewolf.’ The presupposed Old Teutonic werowulfo- means literally ‘man-wolf,’ i.e., a man who roams about in the form of a wolf (Greek λυκάνθρωπος) . ”

“ A werewolf, or loup-garou 65 was a person who had the power of transforming himself into a wolf, being endowed, while in the lupine state, with the intelligence of a man, the ferocity of a wolf, and the irresistible strength of a demon. The ancients believed in the existence of such persons; but in the Middle Ages the metamorphosis was supposed to be a phenomenon of daily occurrence, and even at the present day, in secluded portions of Europe, the superstition is still cherished by peasants. ”

“ IN no country has the werwolf flourished as in France, where it is known as the loup garou; where it has existed in all parts, in every age, and where it is even yet to be found in the more remote districts. Hence one could fill a dozen volumes with the stories, many of them well authenticated, of French werwolves. ”

“ Madame De Ber says there is no such thing as a loup garou, that a person cannot be a man and a wolf at the same time. When the wolves and the panthers and the bears howl at night one's blood runs chilly. But we are safe in the stockade."
"There is much for thee to learn, little one," he said, after a pause. "There must be schools in the new country so that all shall not grow up in ignorance. Where is thy father?"
Jeanne Angelot stared straight before her seeing nothing. ”

“ According to Servius, the wolves among the people, called for this reason Hirpini (the Sabine word hirpus meaning a wolf) , carried off the entrails of the victim sacrificed to Pluto, and therefore brought down a pestilence upon the land. Wolves tore the hero Milôn to pieces in the forest. Wolves are an omen of death; the loup garou of popular French tradition is a diabolical form. [233] In the Edda, the two wolves Sköll and Hati wish to take, one the sun and the other the moon; the wolf devours the sun, father of the world, and gives birth to a daughter. ”

“ In France the creature has what is historically the same name as our ‘werewolf;’ viz. in early forms ‘gerulphus,’ ‘garoul,’ and now pleonastically ‘loup-garou.’ The parliament of Franche-Comté made a law in 1573 to expel the werewolves; in 1598 the werewolf of Angers gave evidence of his hands and feet turning to wolf’s claws; in 1603, in the case of Jean Grenier, the judge declared lycanthropy to be an insane delusion, not a crime. ”

“ In a neighbourhood said to be frequented by one of these devastators, who was of course no other than a man in wolf’s clothing, who, in this assumed character pillaged the adjacent farms, a garde champêtre or country constable, who had been several [Pg 344] times attacked by the supposed monster, contrived to lop off his paw with a hatchet; and, on the escape of the loup-garou, found, as he expected, that the furry paw contained a human hand! ”

“ At Dôle, two years afterwards, Gilles Garnier, a native of Lyons, was indicted for being a loup-garou, or man-wolf, and for prowling in that shape about the country at night to devour little children. The indictment against him, as read by Henri Camus, doctor of laws and counsellor of the king, was to the effect that he, Gilles Garnier, had seized upon a little girl, twelve years of age, whom he drew into a vineyard and there killed, partly with his teeth and partly with his hands, seeming like wolf's paws ”

“ The werewolf legend constitutes one of the most somber of the traditionary beliefs existing in French Canada. The story of a human being assuming a wolf's shape is certainly one of the most generally diffused throughout the world, and the werewolf story comes down to us from old Roman times. The French Canadian believes that if a person does not partake of the sacrament for seven years, he will turn into a loup-garou—a shapeless animal without head or limbs ”

“ The ancients believed that if a man encountered a Wolf, and the animal first fixed its eyes upon him, he was deprived for ever of the power of speech: connected with these ferocious brutes is the fearful superstition of the Lycanthropos, Were-wulf, Loup-garou, or Man-wolf. ”

“ Courting having proved of no avail, he resolved on force when she had decided to enter a convent, and he went to one of the witches, who served as devil's agent, to sell his soul. The witch accepted the slight commodity and paid for it with a grant of power to change from a man's form to that of a were-wolf, or loup garou, that he might the easier bear away his victim. Incautiously, he followed her to Grosse Pointe, where an image of the Virgin had been set up, and as Genevieve dropped at the feet of the statue to implore aid, the wolf, as he leaped to her side, was suddenly turned to stone. ”

“ Then there had come that Christmas-Eve, when Jacques La France had been found dead in his shack, with a hole in his neck, just outside of Dawson City. Little Baptiste had owned with tears to the crime, and had excused himself saying that he had been compelled to the shooting because Jacques was his dearest friend, and Jacques had become a loup-garou through not attending the Easter Sacrament for seven years; as everybody knew, only by the inflicting of a bloody wound on his beast's body could his soul be saved from hell. ”

“ Bill laughed: "This wolf—the big white one—seems to enjoy a reputation, then?"
"R-r-reputation! R-r-reputation, is ut? Good Lord, man! Don't ye know her? 'Tis th' werwolf! D'ablish, th' loup-garou, the Frinchies call her; an' the white divil, the Injuns—an' good rayson, f'r to me own knowledge she's kilt foive folks, big an' shmall, an' some Injuns besides. They claim she's a divil, an' phwin she howls, 'tis because some sowl has missed th' happy huntin' grounds in th' dyin', an' she's laughin'." ”

“ Sir, whether you be loup-garou, werwolf, witch-b’ar or all them to onct, I do not care. What I want ter say is ef that tha’ ranch yander be your’n, you may hamstring me ef I hain’t proud to have such a man for a neighbor. Whatever else you be yore no shavetail or shorthorn, an’ that’s howsomever. I don’t mind sayin’ that yore a better shot an’ all around hunter an’ mountain man than Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton, Davy Crockett, Kit Carson, Bison McClean and Jim Baker all rolled in one. ”

“ In the southern provinces of France, there prevails a superstition, derived probably from the lycanthropy of the ancients, that certain persons assume at night the form of wolves, and roam the country for prey, under the name of loup-garoux ”

“ The nature of werewolves is such that they are allied to the powers of darkness. Therefore they can never appear in the light. One imbued with such powers, therefore, can, and at last must, change into the wolfish form at sundown—but—and here is what I wish you to remember, my son—he must change back into his normal shape again at sunrise. ”

“ People who had the power of turning themselves into, or were turned into, wolves. This fearful superstition, which is very ancient, was extremely prevalent in the middle ages. In French they were called Loup-garous. ”

“ Les indigènes de l’Australie Centrale peignent aussi sur les roches ou le sol des figures des animaux dans le but avoué d’en favoriser par la même raison, qui dans certaines campagnes fait qu’on évite de prononcer le nom du loup. ”

“ A French piece is current in Remiremont which is called Le Conjurateur et le Loup, "the magician and the wolf." It describes the contest between them, and shows that the making and unmaking of spells is involved:—
L'y a un loup dedans le bois,
Le loup ne veut pas sortir du bois. ”

“ Alerte!--to the walls! to the walls!" and, hurrying out as fast as possible, I was proceeding towards the Porte Digeaux, when, at the corner of one of the narrow streets, I ran accidentally against a lady handsomely dressed, and, nearly knocking her down, struck out of her hand the black velvet mask, called a loup, which was then very generally used by women in the higher classes, under the pretext of defending their complexions from the sun or from the sharp air. ”

“ And the king whose despotic power was felt over its entire extent was an old gray wolf.
Old Lobo, or the king, as the Mexicans called him, was the gigantic leader of a remarkable pack of gray wolves, that had ravaged the Currumpaw Valley for a number of years. All the shepherds and ranchmen knew him well, and, wherever he appeared with his trusty band, terror reigned supreme among the cattle, and wrath and despair among their owners. Old Lobo was a giant among wolves, and was cunning and strong in proportion to his size. ”

“ What he was giving right-of-way to was the lobo.
The coyote drew off a short distance and sank humbly to earth as a loafer wolf came running out of the shadows. He was a huge fellow, almost red along the back, gray as to his underbody, and he loped purposefully, bent on slaughter. Scartoe sank lower and groveled. In imagination he was fawning upon this mighty creature that inspired him with dread and respect; for, though of the same race, they were far apart as the poles. He knew the magnificent courage of the loafer and, when the King hunted, to him belonged the trail. ”

“ Apres bien des difficultes, on parvint s'emparer de lui. Il dit en confidence a ceux qui l'arreterent: Je suis vraiment un loup, et si ma peau ne parait pas etre celle d'un loup, c'est parce qu'elle est retournee et que les poils sont en dedans.—Pour s'assurer du fait, on coupa le malheureux aux differentes parties du corps, on lui emporta les bras et les jambes."—Taine, De l'Intelligence, Tom. ”

“ But the wolf also, and primarily, feeds on the ungulates—the mountain sheep, caribou, and moose. Under natural conditions the relationship between the wolf and these prey species is old and tried. There is the aphorism, “nothing in nature offends nature.” In the hunting of these animals the wolf appears to be an evolutionary force in that there is a tendency for the weaker individuals to succumb.
In spring the wolf hunts the caribou calves, which early develop surprising speed, so that when a wolf chases a group of caribou, the calves race along with the adults. ”