pritchke |
10-24-2002 07:00 PM |
With a European crusade against them, werewolves appear to have welcomed the opening of the New World, settling in with the other French immigrants in the shantytowns and logging camps along the St. Lawrence River. It didn't take long before tales were told of a new menace that hid in the darkness. The first of these Canadian legends of the werewolf (or loup-garou in French) dates back to this era.
The classic loup-garou tale is told of a miller named Joachim Crete who lived on the Gatineau River. Against the warnings of his neighbours, Crete took in and helped a weary French immigrant named Hubert Sauvageau. The two men hit it off, carousing and drinking together at all hours of the night. Almost immediately, sheep and cattle were found ripped apart in the small settlement. Rumours of the loup-garou abounded, but Crete paid no heed to the superstition. Even when a child fell victim to the creature's attacks, he refused to consider his ward a suspect.
The miller's behaviour got worse with Sauvageau's influence. Crete had long ago forsaken the church when, on Christmas Eve, he heard a noise coming from outside the house. The rest of the town was at midnight Mass, so he knew it wasn't one of the villagers. The two men went to investigate, but being more than a little drunk they didn't find anything. When Crete finally made his way back to the kitchen he sobered up enough to realize that Sauvageau was not with him. He was about to go outside to look when he heard a growling from the stairs. He turned and saw the loup-garou ready to leap on him, red eyes flashing in the darkness. The story goes that Crete battled with the beast, eventually hitting it with a scythe and cutting its ear off. The beast fled, never to return.
The next morning when Crete awoke, he found Sauvageau washing up in the bathroom. Before he could tell the man of the loup-garou, he noticed that Sauvageau was missing an ear. So for the North Americans on this site of you here a strange sound during holloween night ....
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