The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves (11 page)

In 1920, Dr. Juan Hipolito Yrigoyen, the president of Argentina, came up with a most ingenious plan to bring an end to the superstitious stigma of evil that had long been associated with his country’s outcast seventh sons. He officially declared that he would now be the legal god-father of any seventh son born in Argentina. In addition, Yrigoyen also decreed that a gold medal would be awarded to parents at the baptisms of all seventh sons in Argentina.

 

Furthering his generosity, Yrigoyen also put into law that all seventh sons would receive full educational scholarships until they reached 21 years of age. As one might imagine, the occurrences of abandonments and infanticides soon decreased dramatically. As a result of President Yrigoyen’s brilliant plan, the birth of a seventh son now came to be seen by parents as a blessing instead of a curse. Having a seventh son now provided unprecedented opportunities to many rural and lower-class families, giving them a chance to have well-educated children, which in turn enabled them to improve the conditions of their families’ lives.

Something terrible was happening to the children of Dole, France, in the summer of 1573. The children of the area were vanishing one by one and with astonishing frequency, never to be seen alive again. Sadly, many of these missing little ones would later be found in the woods … dead. Their bodies were often mutilated beyond recognition, and large sections of their flesh appeared to have been torn from their limbs as if by some powerful animal. It didn’t take long for the people of Dole to realize that their children were not just being murdered by this bloodthirsty creature. They were also being eaten by it. With every passing week, the terrible situation only grew more and more desperate.

 

As the seasons changed, the situation did not. In early November, a boy inexplicably disappeared from the area. Shortly thereafter, the bodies of three other missing children were discovered. In December of that same year, the French authorities in Dole officially declared that these murders were the work of a werewolf. A hunting warrant was immediately issued for the child-killing beast, and a large number of hunting parties were formed to track it down.

 

This is where things get a little difficult to follow when it comes to the information available. According to the official records of the incident, the werewolf was soon caught in the act of attacking another child. However, the locals in the hunting party testified that they recognized this werewolf as Gilles Garnier (because it would seem that, even though in werewolf form, he retained enough of his human features to be recognizable). Garnier was well known by the villagers as a local hermit.

 

According to the official account, Garnier immediately returned to his human form upon being apprehended. The local hermit did not deny any of the accusations brought against him. In fact, it would appear that he openly admitted to the killings. (Of course, his confession could still have been the result of torture or coercion.) He even offered a gruesome account of how he’d murdered and eaten some of the children. He was sentenced to death for his crimes.

 

On January 8, 1574, Gilles Garnier, the long hunted “Werewolf of Dole,” was tied to a stake and burned alive for committing crimes related to the forbidden practice of lycanthropy.

The Gandillons of St. Cloud, France, might have been one of the most unusual families in history. No one can say for certain what criminal actions, if any, they truly committed before their apprehensions. The case first began in 1574, when two children were savagely attacked by a woman named Pernette Gandillon. Pernette appeared to have been the violent matriarch of her own “werewolf pack,” which included her brother, Pierre, and his two children (a son and daughter).

 

In her attack on the two children, she killed the younger. The older child managed to escape and reported the attack to authorities. Pernette Gandillon was soon located, and the surviving child identified her as the attacker. There wasn’t really a trial. Apparently, a lynch mob had formed and immediately fell upon the crazed woman, who is said to have snarled and howled at them as she walked around on all fours. The mob, according to accounts, tore Pernette Gandillon to pieces on the spot. They more than likely believed that she was a werewolf, if her behavior was truly as accounts describe.

Pernette’s brother Pierre was soon arrested, along with his son, under the suspicion that he was also involved in lycanthropy. Officially, he was accused of being both a werewolf and a witch. While in custody, both Pierre and his son confessed to using a special ointment that, when rubbed on their bodies, gave them the power to shapeshift. It is written that both men removed their shirts to expose a multitude of scars, which they claimed to have received in fights with other canines while in the form of werewolves.

 

When the two men were placed in a cell, they began to walk around on all fours, howl, and growl at their jailors. The two men were sentenced to hang. However, before their executions, authorities also arrested and tried Pierre’s daughter. She was accused and quickly convicted of being a witch and was sentenced to hang alongside her father and brother. All three were executed by hanging, and their remains were then burned to ashes. The entire family was executed, it would appear, for the crimes of one. Only Pernette Gandillon, when all is said and done, could be proven guilty of murder. She remains the only member of the family, which from that day came to be called the “Werewolves of St. Cloud,” known to have ever killed anyone. It would appear that Pierre Gandillon, his son, and his daughter were executed for nothing more than being related to Pernette.

Of all the werewolf trials discussed in this chapter, this one is by far the most unique (not to mention creative). In 1692, in the village of Jurgenburg in Livonia, which is today a part of Russia, an 80-year-old man by the name of Theiss was put on trial as a werewolf. As seems to be the norm in these cases, Theiss did not try to deny that he was indeed a werewolf. However, he did offer to the presiding authorities what was then an unprecedented (and exceedingly brilliant) explanation for what he claimed werewolves truly were. His argument was so convincing, in fact, that he was temporarily set free and later avoided execution.

 

He may have been old, but Theiss wasn’t at all feeble or weak. Under threat of torture, he refused to confess to having committed any crimes against human beings. However, he fully agreed with the accusation that he was a werewolf. This is where this particular story gets
really
interesting.

 

Theiss explained that human beings did not understand the truth regarding the natural role of werewolves in the whole “good vs. evil” dynamic. Werewolves, Theiss explained to the court, were actually the servants of almighty God himself. Apparently, his story was so convincingly told that, when he was sent back to his cell, authorities did not immediately sentence him. In fact, some folklore accounts claim that his jailors (probably not wanting to risk the wrath of hell’s army) actually turned him loose. If this is true, Theiss did not appear to have stayed free. He was soon brought back to the court for further questioning.

 

Theiss elaborated further that he was a member of a pack of holy werewolves called the
Benandanti.
Interestingly enough, during this same time period, a group of men in Italy also confessed to being the werewolf servants of God, members of the same Benandanti, and they also claimed that their role was to battle witches and demons. (They, however, did not manage to escape their execution.) You see, Theiss testified that ever since God had given Lucifer domain over the earth, the demonic legions of hell had been relatively free to cross over into the human world (though only on certain nights of the year), and werewolves were the only ones capable of guarding the gates. Both the witches of Earth and the demons of hell, he explained, were stealing grain from farms (which he offered as the cause of a recent famine) and bringing it into hell. If not for werewolves, he told the court, the armies of hell would soon starve out and then overrun the area and soon after all of humankind.

The old man explained that, many years ago, he’d become a part of this battle when a dark sorcerer named Skeistan (who was well known in the region, especially for being
long dead
) had broken Theiss’s nose with a broom handle wrapped in hair from a horse’s tail. In a chance encounter, Theiss had stumbled upon their dark scheme. He was saved by werewolves, given an iron bar (the primary weapon against the forces of evil), and initiated by the Benandanti werewolves. Theiss told the court that the gates opened their widest on the three nights of the year that marked the changing of the seasons—the eves of Pentecost (winter to spring), St. Lucia (spring to summer), and St. John (summer to winter).

 

The local church authorities, it seemed, were completely dumbfounded as to what they should do. If Theiss was lying, of course, then it would be no harm, no foul on their part. However, if Theiss was telling the truth … by executing him, they would be personally responsible for unleashing hell on Earth (not to mention killing a divine servant of heaven). Apparently, this wasn’t a risk they were willing to take. Rather than execute Theiss for openly confessing to lycanthropy (which, according to church law, was a capital offense), they sentenced him to receive 10 lashes. For a charge of lycanthropy, this was a
very
lenient punishment for the time period.

In June of 1823, a 29-year-old Frenchman by the name of Antoine Leger decided to separate himself from the world. Leger had once been a soldier, after which he had worked briefly in a vineyard as a vine-dresser. He journeyed into the woods to assume a life as a hermit and even took up residence in a natural cave. His choice may have been influenced by the common occurrence of famines in France (the country had already been experiencing frequent and extreme famines for nearly 1,000 years), and Leger may have thought that he could live off the land by foraging and hunting. There are some who now firmly believe that Leger may have been exhibiting symptoms of a delusional mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, and that this is what led him to take up a life in the woods.

 

By the year 1824, however, something went terribly awry with Antoine Leger’s new lifestyle. Some believe he went stark raving mad as a result of his long solitude. Others theorize that hunting and foraging ceased to offer a plentiful-enough bounty to sustain him. Whatever the case, it is safe to say that something in the mind of Antoine Leger had altogether snapped.

 

Leger somehow snatched a little girl who had wandered near the edge of the woods from a nearby village and dragged her to his cave. Once there, he killed the child, drank her blood, and ate some of her flesh. Some believe he tore her body apart using only his teeth and bare hands, while others say he used a blade or some other edged weapon. The records are sketchy on the details. When the girl did not return home, a search party combed the woods and happened upon Leger’s cave. At the ghastly sight of the girl’s mutilated corpse, the mob immediately fell upon Leger and handed him over to the Versailles magistrates.