#loup garou

Can't believe I drew this comic in 2023 (before SMT V Vengeance was ever announced), then completely forgot to post it 💀

Car, même si ta présence est lointaine, Lune, tes faisceaux m’atteignent sans mal. Ta montée en flèche brise mes chaînes Et, du firmament, perce le gris voile.

Ta parole d’argent vaut plus que l’or Aux loups-garous et sorciers qu’elle appelle. Au son de ta voix, les marées au port Retournent tel mon regard vers le ciel.

Née de débris et vêtue de cratères, Avec fierté ton visage tu montres. Pourtant, en orbite autour de la Terre, Tu ne brilles que des rayons de l’Autre.

Lune! Qui connaît ta face cachée? Des paupières, j’ai fermé les fenêtres. Lune! Le clair de lune est-il l’archer Qui des vérités si pures pénètre?

Ah, Mère! Tu possèdes la beauté De l’auréole et des lys de la Vierge. Me nettoyant, le venin est ôté, Mais le Serpent rampe parmi tes cierges.

Though neither of these are actually diegetic terms and most wolfmen/loup-garous would probably just call themselves werewolves, in Eureka rules text a “werewolf” is a much older folkloric version of the werewolf, while a “wolfman” or “loup-garou” is based on the Hollywood adaptation which is completely different but is what most people think of as a “werewolf” today.

A Eureka “werewolf” is basically just a witch who occasionally transforms into a relatively normal wolf on purpose. No loss of control, no special strengths or weaknesses or immunity to non-silver weapons, etc.

A Eureka “wolfman” or “loup-garou” is a Hollywood werewolf. They are affected by the full moon, they transform into a gigantic and/or anthropomorphic wolf, and they lose control and rampage around sometimes. They can also transform willingly without losing control, and are vulnerable to silver but at least partially invulnerable to most other things.

You can find all this in Chapter 8 of the Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy rulebook.

Gilles Garnier (1873) - French werewolf

Gilles Garnier, also known as "the hermit of St. Bonnot," was an ugly recluse shunned by others. He lived with his wife, Apolline, in an inaccessible, turf-roofed, and rudely constructed hovel near Amanges, France.

In autumn 1873 a werewolf was said to have carried off several small children in the area of Dole. The court parliament at Dole issued a proclamation authorizing the peasants to hunt the creature down.

Initially, Garnier was not a suspect, despite his odd appearance and manner. He had bushy eyebrows that met, a pale face with livid complexion, a long gray beard, and a stooping walk. He seldom spoke to others.

On November 8, 1873, a girl was attacked by a wolf. Her screams attracted some of the peasants. When they reached her, they saw a ferocious wolf and the wounded girl trying to defend herself. The appearance of the peasants frightened off the wolf, who ran into the forest. Several peasants said they thought they had recognized the features of the hermit in the creature.

A few days later, on November 14, a 10-year-old boy went missing. Garnier was arrested and put on trial. Both he and his wife confessed to his being a werewolf, and their testimony was corroborated by witnesses.

Garnier confessed to taking the form of a wolf and attacking and slaying a number of children. On the last day of Michelmas, he attacked and killed a 12-year-old girl. He carted her body into the woods, stripped off her clothing, and gnawed her arms and legs. He thought the flesh so tasty that he took some of it home to his wife for her enjoyment.

Eight days later, he seized another girl but did not kill her, for he was surprised by three persons, and he fled. But soon he attacked a 10-year-old boy and strangled him to death. He ate the arms and legs, tearing one leg completely off with his fangs, and also ate most of the boy's belly.

Garnier's next victim was a boy of 12 or 13, whom he seized and killed. He intended to take the body into the woods to eat, but once again the appearance of peasants frightened him off. Those men testified at Garnier's trial that they had seen him in human form and not a wolf form.

Garnier was convicted and sentenced to be dragged to the place of public execution, where he was burned alive.

Text from The Encyclopedia of Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Monsters (Checkmark Books, 2005) by Rosemary Guiley

Yes, the Rougarou is a Werewolf (A short tangent) Disclaimer: This is only in regard to how The Rougarou is described in the localized legends. It is not necessarily real. This is based on the folklore surrounding the supposed cryptid. Now, let us begin. I have a pet peeve. So many so-called Cryptozoologists don’t realize the Rougarou actually IS a werewolf and not merely “like” a werewolf. The reason is they either trust the description used in the Epic Universe theme parks cryptid shop (who differentiate because they have their own unique werewolf lore) or because they assume the movies about werewolves are accurate and they don’t actually know the older folklore. There’s also an odd squeamishness that some modern Cryptozoologists don’t want to consider that one of their precious cryptids has roots in traditional folklore and they are afraid of ridicule for investigating a possible werewolf. But that IS what the rougarou is. 1. In regard to the argument that actual werewolves are half-Man and half-wolf and that a Rougarou is often just a man who becomes a wolf or a man with a wolf head I’ll address that in segments. First the half-man / half-wolf notion. Traditional werewolf folklore was not "Half man / Half wolf." It's man into wolf. Were meaning man and Wolf. In traditional, very old, werewolf folklore a human deliberately transforms himself into a literal wolf, not a bipedal creature like in the movies. That comes later in more modern lore. Many so-called werewolves were burnt at the stake in the middle ages because they were believed to be tormenting the farmers and killing livestock, particularly in the Auvergne of France. The oldest known werewolf story is of King Lycaon of Arcadia, from whom we get the terms Lycanthrope, Lycanthropy and the modern Lycan. In his story his eyes remained human while in wolf form but otherwise looked like an actual wolf but while in man form he had the eyes of a wolf as a sort of “tell” so that he could never truly be of one world or the other.

2. In regard to the claim that the rougarou can appear in his beastly form whenever he wants (or all the time in his beast form) but mostly at night, and not merely on the full moon “and that’s why he’s not a werewolf...” The notion that a werewolf only turns on the full moon was popularized in the 1940s thanks to The Wolfman movie. In traditional foklore they could turn at will. Sometimes they were more feral and wolf-like in manner during the full moon but they could turn whenever they felt like it. Sometimes if enraged and often by choice.

3. Rougarou or Rou-Garou is just accented French that distorted from the colliding accents in Louisiana. Louisiana, particularly New Orleans was and is a cultural melting pot. The French word is Loup-Garou and this is French for.... werewolf. Rou-Garou is a localized pronunciation of the French Loup-Garou and that is literally French for werewolf. This is why the creature is sometimes called the Bayou Werewolf. It’s not merely a nickname. That IS what he is supposed to be. And it is very disrespectful and sleazy that Universal Studios has gone out of its way to spread the notion that the rougarou is “Not a werewolf” but merely ”like” a werewolf because the folklore he comes from doesn’t quite match their precious, copyrighted, Wolfman version of a Werewolf.

It's a major pet-peeve of mine when people (and Universal's Epic Universe) describe the Rougarou as being "Like" a werewolf when he literally is a werewolf. It's culturally insulting and ignores the heritage the lore came from because people only know pop culture werewolves now and not the folklore.

4. The notion that he’s only “like” a werewolf and “not actually a werewolf” because he has the head of a wolf and the body of a man in some descriptions - Werewolves that are humans with the head of a wolf are popular in some parts of Scotland and parts of Eastern Europe. There's even a friendly werewolf with that description in Scottish legend, who leaves fresh fish on the windowsills of poor families so they won’t starve. And some Eastern Orthodox / Greek Orthodox followers depict Saint Christopher as a wolf headed man werewolf. There’s Eastern European folklore that makes Saint Christopher a werewolf exactly like the Rougarou. Also there are some stories where the Rougarou can talk like a man while in his bestial form. This also does not take away from the idea that he is a werewolf. Some werewolves are depicted as being able to speak like people while in wolf form. It is not a common part of the lore but it is out there, sometimes depicted in animation or comedies like with Wayne The Werewolf in Hotel Transylvania.

5. The notion that the rougarou is only “Like” a werewolf because he’s believed to probably be immortal “and werewolves are not.” Well, in the original 1941 Wolfman franchise, in the movie Monster Squad, and in the movie Monster Mash (2024) the werewolves in those movies were depicted as mostly immortal and could only be temporarily killed or killed with very specific means. They even had regenerative powers in Monster Squad and Monster Mash. Often they are shown as not aging like Wayne The werewolf in Hotel Transylvania. In the Sandman issue “The Hunt” by Neil Gaiman, the werewolves were very long lived. Not precisely immortal but they had very long life-spans. But in a lot of lore they were literally immortal. The first known werewolf story is the Greek myth of King Lycaon of Arcadia. Many early werewolf stories depicted them as being similar to sidhe and other magical and immortal entities in that their vulnerability was iron. The weakness to silver was not described until the eighteenth century and then it wasn’t popularized until Hollywood started doing werewolf movies. One curious bit of nineteenth century lore claimed that if a werewolf was somehow killed, he could return as a vampire. This is why some stories have the overlapping weaknesses of fire, decapitation, and silver. This may be why Dracula has such a fondness for wolves in Bram Stoker’s novel, and why his weaknesses match some werewolf lore, as well as his ability to transform into a wolf (besides bat). I wish more self-professed Cryptozoologists would stop using a zoologist pretense (ofhen with little to no knowledge of taxonomy). Because when they do this, when they put on that persona, they become dismissive of- or even chafe at- the notion that what they are investigating has its roots in folklore. Too many modern Cryptozoologists ignore folklore and treat the entities they investigate like they are all alien lifeforms or just animal sub-species. In the case of the Rougarou it’s a changed pronunciation of Loup-Garou. Literally “Werewolf.” The “L” to “R” was not because it is only “Like” a werewolf and “not actually” a werewolf. It was just because of linguistic enunciation shifts. It’s like how some parts of the American South pronounce Haunt as “Haint” (like “ain’t”) instead of the more traditional haw-nt. The Rougarou IS a werewolf. End of rant. My sources for this interpretation of the lore:

The werewolf Handbook by Dr. Robert Curran Werewolves by Dr. Robert Curran

Werewolves: The Encyclopedia of shape-shifting beings