The Werewolf of Dole
Werewolves are rampant throughout folklore - insatiable, uncontrollable beasts doomed to bear their ugly mugs and terrorize humanity, even if the human inside didn’t consent to what was happening. Belief and stories of werewolves are common across all corners of the globe, from the Turkish Kurtadam to the Mexican Nahaul. But, tonight we’ll be talking about one of my favorite French werewolves: Gilles Garnier.
The French term for werewolf is ‘Loup-Garou’ and popularity of werewolf lore, while it can be found throughout France’s history, particularly surged in the 16th century. Like witches, werewolves were hunted in France and even convicted and executed based on the belief that they were werewolves.
Our story begins in the 1570s outside of Dole, France. Gilles Garnier lived just outside the village, in relative isolation, with his wife. He was a hermit and very rarely traveled into town. He mostly subsisted off the land and, until the early 1570s, was not seen as a threat.
However, Dole soon fell to a strange set of disasters: children were disappearing...and sometimes the missing children were found mutilated, and even torn apart. Rumors began to bubble up and, when enough children went missing, it wasn’t believed to be bad luck - these disastrous deaths had to come from a werewolf. In fact, sightings of a strange wolf-like creature lurking around farms were reported.
Town officials raised the issue to the provincial authorities and an order was brought down: citizens should hunt down the werewolf responsible for this madness.
A group of men formed a group and began to try and locate the werewolf, which was believed to operate under the cover of night. After a few nights of fruitless searching, then men came upon a hunched, strange figure on the perimeter of town...hunched over a child’s body. They captured and detained the man, prepared to bring this man to justice. In addition to Gilles, his wife was also arrested.
The man was identified as Gilles Garnier, who, as mentioned previously, seemed to pose no real threat to the town until this identification.
Surprisingly, during his trial, Gilles confessed. The story of how he became a werewolf might be a little different than the ones you are used to, though.
Gilles claimed that one night, a demon visited him in his house and gave him a special ointment that would transform him into a wolf. Gilles accepted this strange gift from a stranger being because Gilles was often starving. He was growing older and without stable employment, he found it harder and harder to provide enough food for him and his wife.
However, when he applied the ointment and became a werewolf he lost his faculties and could not control his rage and hunger. He confessed to killing two girls and two boys and eating their flesh. He even claimed he brought some of their remains home with him to feed his wife. Some claim these confessions were to stop the torture being enacted upon him, other tellings of the tale say the man willingly confessed to his purported crimes.
Gilles was found guilty of both witchcraft, since he utilized magical ointment, and lycanthropy, since he had turned into a werewolf (willingly). The court, hearing his confession, sentenced him to be burned at the stake.
On January 18, 1573, Garnier was burned at the stake.
Like so many stories of witches during the same time, Gilles also lived in relative social isolation to a small town. After tragedy befell the town, perhaps unsure what to do with their grief and rage, they sought a scapegoat to enact righteous fury. Although Gilles confessed, did he do so under duress from the community? Was it given due to torture? Was this confession falsified? Was he insane? Or, did the devil really visit his home one fateful night and offer him that magic ointment?
The header image is comes from the Wellcome Collection, Woodcut of a werewolf attack, 1512.