The Gevaudan File
The Beast of Gevaudan Monument
This is most probably the first account of a werewolf attacking a man who would later, himself, transform. It is also the first account where a werewolf was killed, not from mere bullets as they would only hurt him but, with silver bullets. And finally, these horrible events first started on, you guessed it, a moonlit night. If this is a myth, then at least, now we know where those three werewolf legends come from.
It all starts with Count Getulio Vargo, in the early 1760’s. The Nobleman had been caught attacking and raping a young twenty year old gypsy woman and as he was being given a serious beating by her two brothers that had come to her rescue, one of those gypsy brothers placed a curse on him. A curse that would turn all of nature, all of the wilderness, against the Count so that he may never rest.
The lustful count laughed nervously as he fled, but thirty minutes later, a wood chopper saw a strange grey-furred overgrown beast, like a wolf, but standing on its hind legs, watching him from a forest clearing. The beast roared and charged towards the woodman, who was too terrified to run. Thankfully, the huge animal - which was larger than a bear - ran past him and closed in on a caped figure who had been strolling down a lane. This figure was the Count Vargo, just five minutes away from his home. The lupine monstrosity seized its terror-struck human prey with its huge foaming jaws and shook the body as if it were a rag doll.
Well, that must’ve hurt...
The Count had been seriously wounded but he made a miraculous recovery and went missing a month later. Everyone thought that he had been going insane from his encounter with the creature, after all, he had been demanding to be served very very rare cooked meals and had also been found eating a raw leg of lamb, during a night where one of his servants kept an eye on him.
A second month passed without incident but on a Sunday night, in june of 1764, the howling began. A howling so loud and penetrating that it terrified everyone that heard it. A woman had seen the beast and gave a description that seemed very comparable to the first sighting, earlier in the year.
And as the months went by, the killing spree began along with the biggest werewolf hunt in all of recorded history. As livestock and human beings were being slaughtered, taking no consideration if they were men, women or children, the “Beast of Gevaudan” as it was nicknamed terrified everyone as all villagers from the surrounding municipalities would start barricading themselves indoor.
As a woman was shredded apart in front of her two brothers, who tried to harm the beast without success, an old man came to the scene, where the woman had been left there, mutilated, her head being bitten off as for one of her brother’s four fingers, a horrific carnage to which the old man concluded:
'This is not the work of a wild animal. It is the work of a werewolf. There were werewolves in these woods and mountains when I was a child.'
As dozens upon dozens of victims would still fall prey to the creature, Captain Duhamel sent 57 of his best soldiers on the hunt. The horror continued, often times right under the nose of the best soldiers Duhamel had chosen. The news finally made its way to King Louis XV, who sent Denneval, a wolf hunter who had no less than captured and killed over twelve hundred wolves.
In May 1765, rumors went around that the beast had been killed. A wolf had indeed been killed but the ravages went on. The King called back Denneval and sent Antoine de Beauterne, the King’s personal gun carrier, to replace him in the hunt. As rewards were getting higher and higher, so did the hunter counts and so did the beast attacks. Finally, an end was put to the legend, or so they thought, as a gigantic wolf was shot and killed. Naturalists called the creature a rare type of overgrown wolf, measuring over six feet in length and weighing more than a hundred and forty pounds.
Victory was celebrated but the killings continued, only to be stopped by a brave hunter by the name of Jean Chastel, who had been given blessed silver bullets, who then shot and killed an even bigger creature than de Beauterne’s.
After saying 'You will kill no more,' he opened fire and hit the animal in the head. The gigantic wolf-like animal fell dead instantly. Some accounts say the second Beast was thrown on a bonfire, and that on the spot where it was killed, the grass still refuses to grow.
Count Vargo was never found, and his fate remains a mystery.
Read more HERE.
Can you imagine what it must have been like? I can’t and don’t want to...
~Continued on next post
edit on 26-12-2012 by SonoftheSun because: (no reason given)
Touché !! 
