Episode Details

The werewolf (Fr: loup-garou) epidemic of 16th-century France forms the core of our show, but we also include some medieval French werewolf tales as well as the legend of a figure connected to both werewolves and Bluebeard.

In our last episode on Bluebeard, I promised to recount a legend that may have inspired Charles Perrault’s story. This would be the story of Count Conomor, or “Conomor the Accursed,” a 6^th-century ruler of Brittany. Here the role of Bluebeard’s new wife is played by Trephine, the daughter of a rival count.  Through her forbearance, she came to be regarded in local traditions as a saint (therefore the chapel depiction below).  Her adventures include interaction with the helpful ghosts of Conomor’s slain wives, decapitation by Conomor (with miraculous cure) and a magic ring  The curse upon this wicked count continues into the afterlife, during which he is condemned to roam the countryside in the form of a werewolf.

Our next segment looks at some medieval werewolf stories, including the 12-century poem by a Marie de France, “Bisclavret,” in which the werewolf plays a surprisingly sympathetic role, the tale of Sir Hugues de Camp-d’Avesnes, condemned to an afterlife as a werewolf for burning a town in the 1131, and that of the knight Raimbaud de Pulet, who in a fit of despondent madness becomes a werewolf.

The French werewolf epidemic, which between 1520 and 1630, resulted in the execution of more than 30,000 individuals was the result of a link forged between the werewolf and a new, more aggressive attitude toward witchcraft arising in ecclesiastic councils taking place in Basel Switzerland in the 1430s.  The first regions in France to begin prosecutions were therefore naturally those adjacent to Switzerland.  Many there were overseen by Henry Bouguet, a judge who tried approximately 600 witchcraft cases in the locality.  Most of the stories recounted in this episode come from his writings on the subject, while others come from the The Werewolf  by highly eccentric English scholar Montague Summers, who was discussed in Episode 1.

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