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Occult Auvergne: Werewolves in Livradois-Forez

Our [Livradois countryfolk]…have seen time and again the Werewolf, the Galipote, the human beast, vile and disfigured, who prowls around silent dwellings. Dogs are mute at his approach, and lead and bullets, unless blessed, are broken on his skin.


-Abbé Louis-Jean-Joseph Grivel


In 1879, Anatole Roujou, an anthropologist at the University of Clermont-Ferrand, wrote that belief in werewolves among the people of Auvergne “is widespread”. Although his words may come as a surprise to modern readers, available evidence suggests that werewolves were once an integral part of Auvergne’s occult landscape. Long before the mysterious appearance of the Beast of Gévaudan, many people living in the more remote and wolf-ridden areas of Allier, Cantal, Haute-Loire, and Puy-de-Dôme, saw the werewolf as a real monster, a raving beast that prowled isolated crossroads and cemeteries under the baleful light of the full moon.


Frontispiece from Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Book of Were-Wolves

In parts of Livradois-Forez, a region comprising parts of Puy-de-Dôme, Loire, and Haute-Loire, these galipotes (as they were sometimes called) were commanded by a sorcerous figure named Liancade. Often associated with Sainte-Catherine-du-Fraisse, a village at the foot of the Livradois mountains, Liancade appears to have had a monopoly over all werewolf operations in the area. Like some kind of spectral mafioso, he employed his gang of wolves to terrorise and bully locals — especially those who crossed his path at the wrong hour of the night. Yet Liancade’s territory, it seems, did not include the entire Livradois-Forez. In the deep forests around Auzelles, along the Ailloux river, other creatures of the night reigned supreme.


The Legend of the Wolves by Rosa Bonheur

In his 1912 article “‘Letiens’ et Loup-garous”, Antonin Sabatier — an acquaintance of famed writer Henri Pourrat — identified various off-the-beaten-path locales that had a reputation for high loup-garou activity. One of these spots, a kind of Livradois “Sleepy Hollow”, was an expanse of gloomy backwoods near the Ailloux river, between the Auzelles hamlets of La Faye and La Fougère. According to Sabatier’s paternal grandfather, this was the domain of the letien, a goblin who — frighteningly — manifested as a “burning horse head”.


A snippet from Sabatier’s article, which was published in La Musette on 1 February 1912

On other occasions, werewolves took the letien‘s place, emerging from the dark to attack passersby. A particularly unfortunate werewolf had tried to do this one fateful night with Sabatier’s maternal grandfather, François Vigerie. Vigerie, Sabatier noted, “was not a man to be intimidated”. When the werewolf lunged at him, Vigerie pulled out his pistol and fired. The monster, clearly in no mood for a fight, turned and fled. Unflustered, Sabatier’s grandfather continued on toward Auzelles without further incident.


The Ash Lad and the Wolf by Theodor Kittelsen

Was Vigerie’s encounter, which purportedly happened in the middle of the nineteenth century, a sign of the waning power of werewolves in Livradois-Forez? Perhaps Vigerie’s attacker was part of a new generation of loups-garous, one which — perturbed by the fast-industrialising world — lacked the ferocity of their eighteenth-century Gévaudan cousin. Or maybe, as Sabatier suspected, the werewolf his grandfather shot at had been nothing more than a highwayman, dressed in animal skin. Whatever the case, one thing is certain: in the relatively recent past (not even 200 years go), the werewolf had a very real presence in the minds of the people of Livradois-Forez.


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