WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.760 --> 00:00:04.280 You're listening to an airwave media podcast. 2 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:13.439 Who's upbraid on the Big Bad Wolf, Big Bad Wolf, 3 00:00:13.880 --> 00:00:14.960 Big Bad Wolf? 4 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:19.440 Loose afraid of the Big Bad Wolf. Ba lull la la. 5 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.280 It's late at night and you're on your way through 6 00:00:31.359 --> 00:00:34.960 the woods. A full moon casts a blue white light 7 00:00:35.000 --> 00:00:38.200 across the sky, making the trees around you look like 8 00:00:38.280 --> 00:00:42.640 skeletons reaching up into the crisp autumn air. And then 9 00:00:42.679 --> 00:00:46.320 you hear the sound of animals in the dark around you, growls, 10 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:51.880 running paws, crunching dead leaves. In that moment, it will 11 00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:55.399 probably be far from your mind that all those documentaries 12 00:00:55.399 --> 00:00:59.200 you saw about wolves say they don't attack humans. As 13 00:00:59.240 --> 00:01:02.719 you run, and you would run, you might think about 14 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:04.640 how far you have to go to get the safety, 15 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:08.280 or you might think about whether your clothes can protect 16 00:01:08.359 --> 00:01:11.480 you from their teeth. Or you might find that you're 17 00:01:11.519 --> 00:01:14.280 not thinking at all, that your mind's given over to 18 00:01:14.319 --> 00:01:16.879 the lightning flashes of instinct that take over when you're 19 00:01:16.879 --> 00:01:20.959 in mortal peril. Maybe you wouldn't notice that the pack 20 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:23.159 is split and some of the wolves are now in 21 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:26.280 front of you. Maybe you would never feel the wet 22 00:01:26.319 --> 00:01:29.799 of your own urine, which is now spilled down your legs, 23 00:01:30.640 --> 00:01:33.599 and maybe you'd never consider the word that describes you 24 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:38.920 best in this scenario. There, despite all your education, despite 25 00:01:38.959 --> 00:01:43.159 all your stamina, despite all your elaborate hopes and dreams, 26 00:01:43.959 --> 00:01:47.359 in this scenario you can be accurately summed up in 27 00:01:47.400 --> 00:01:56.040 a single word, pray. Okay, it's actually quite unlike anything 28 00:01:56.040 --> 00:01:57.200 we've ever seen before. 29 00:01:59.319 --> 00:02:00.840 A giant, very creature. 30 00:02:01.159 --> 00:02:02.719 Part eight, Part Matt. 31 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:06.959 In Luckness, a twenty four a mile long bottomless lake 32 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:08.159 in the Highlands of Scotland. 33 00:02:08.520 --> 00:02:10.680 Get the creature known as the Luckness Monster. 34 00:02:32.960 --> 00:02:33.879 Monstertal. 35 00:02:35.400 --> 00:02:38.719 Welcome to Monster Talk, the science show about monsters. I'm 36 00:02:38.759 --> 00:02:41.319 Blake Smith, and today with my co host Ben Radford, 37 00:02:41.599 --> 00:02:43.759 we're going to talk about something that's probably going to 38 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:46.719 make some of our listeners upset. If you find the 39 00:02:46.719 --> 00:02:50.800 contents of today's episode or controversial or frustrating, please come 40 00:02:50.840 --> 00:02:52.680 talk to us about it at our Monster Dog fan 41 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:56.199 page on Facebook or send us an email. Our contact 42 00:02:56.199 --> 00:03:00.039 information is available at MonsterTalk dot org. So what's this 43 00:03:00.120 --> 00:03:05.240 controversial monster? The man eating wolf? For years, I'd been 44 00:03:05.280 --> 00:03:08.319 fascinated by the legend of the Beasts of Jevadan and 45 00:03:08.479 --> 00:03:11.080 was so curious as to what killed these people in 46 00:03:11.120 --> 00:03:13.680 France in the seventeen sixties. But as it became a 47 00:03:13.800 --> 00:03:17.639 skeptic of various cryptozoological topics, I began to question the 48 00:03:17.680 --> 00:03:19.000 story itself. 49 00:03:18.719 --> 00:03:21.120 Where there are really any deaths at all? And the 50 00:03:21.159 --> 00:03:22.919 answer is yes, there were. 51 00:03:23.199 --> 00:03:25.639 There were many of them, and they were horrible, and 52 00:03:25.680 --> 00:03:29.439 the likely culprit, as our interview will explain, was wolves. 53 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:33.680 A weird rift exists between the off repeated story that 54 00:03:33.719 --> 00:03:37.599 wolves are essentially beautiful and harmless and the fact that 55 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:40.360 they are apex predators who have to kill animals to live, 56 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:44.439 humans are animals, and where humans interface with wolves, the 57 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:49.199 risk of conflict exists. Now, wolves are beautiful to me, 58 00:03:50.080 --> 00:03:52.759 but despite the t shirts and posters with wolves as 59 00:03:52.759 --> 00:03:56.599 a symbol of nature's savagery and strength, they do sometimes 60 00:03:56.719 --> 00:03:57.280 kill people. 61 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:01.159 I'm going to be revisiting this top on another episode. 62 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.840 I had originally wanted to make this a double length show, 63 00:04:04.360 --> 00:04:07.360 but decided to split it into two episodes instead because 64 00:04:07.400 --> 00:04:10.000 the link of this interview and the complexity of the 65 00:04:10.039 --> 00:04:12.800 topic made it impossible to get it all together. So 66 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:16.000 today we'll be focusing on what's one of the most 67 00:04:16.000 --> 00:04:20.040 famous instances of repeat wolf attacks and recorded history, a 68 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:24.399 case where the legend insists that there was a single, mysterious, powerful, unusual, 69 00:04:24.399 --> 00:04:28.920 and perhaps diabolic creature to blame, a creature so renowned 70 00:04:28.920 --> 00:04:33.079 for its powers and savagery that an entire country knew 71 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:38.759 it shorthand as labitte, or as the English would say, the. 72 00:04:38.600 --> 00:04:40.800 Beast more monstertle. 73 00:04:42.120 --> 00:04:44.759 Today we're talking with author J Smith, who is a 74 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:46.319 history professor at the University of. 75 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:47.519 North Carolina, Chapel Hill. 76 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:51.120 His expertise is in French history, and he's the author 77 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:54.839 of the book Monsters of the Javel Dawn The Making 78 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:58.920 of a Beast. And hopefully I pronounced that correctly, pretty close, 79 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:01.399 all right, how should it best be pronounced? 80 00:05:02.040 --> 00:05:05.360 Don't you wouldn't actually you wouldn't actually pronounce. 81 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:06.720 The end the end at the end? 82 00:05:06.759 --> 00:05:08.439 Okay, good enough? 83 00:05:08.879 --> 00:05:11.120 Yeah, but very close. Excellent, excellent. 84 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:13.879 Well, I just want to say that I. 85 00:05:16.120 --> 00:05:19.040 Rarely do I pick up a book about monsters and 86 00:05:19.079 --> 00:05:23.959 find myself so educated. I've learned so much reading this 87 00:05:24.040 --> 00:05:28.120 so far, and uh, I between, I must just close. 88 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:33.160 I have not completely finished it, but I'm absolutely going 89 00:05:33.199 --> 00:05:34.759 to This has been fabulous. 90 00:05:34.920 --> 00:05:36.759 Uh And and. 91 00:05:37.079 --> 00:05:39.720 Really I'll probably cut that part out so that the 92 00:05:39.759 --> 00:05:43.480 audience doesn't know. But I mean, seriously, this is just 93 00:05:43.519 --> 00:05:49.120 a really really interesting and uh engaging read. 94 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:50.279 So thank you for that. 95 00:05:50.839 --> 00:05:51.560 Oh well, thank you. 96 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:54.519 So let me let me just throw in my two cents, 97 00:05:54.560 --> 00:05:58.240 because I mean, I am, like Blake and many of 98 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.879 our listeners, a monster fishonado and I've got a bookshelf 99 00:06:01.879 --> 00:06:05.079 a full of books on monsters of various types and sorts, 100 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:08.959 and you know, from different approaches, from iconography to history 101 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:11.839 and when rolns, and this really is one of the 102 00:06:11.839 --> 00:06:12.639 best I've read. 103 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.319 I mean just in terms of just a. 104 00:06:15.439 --> 00:06:20.399 Really clear, crystal crystal clear examination of the history and 105 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:21.720 the circumstances behind it. 106 00:06:21.720 --> 00:06:23.879 It was. It's a great book. 107 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:27.879 Well, thanks so much for saying that, because when I 108 00:06:27.879 --> 00:06:30.040 set out to do this book, I was really trying 109 00:06:30.040 --> 00:06:32.279 to thread the needle. I wanted to write a book 110 00:06:32.319 --> 00:06:35.839 that would appeal to historians of France and specialists of 111 00:06:35.879 --> 00:06:38.720 the eighteenth century, but I also wanted to write an 112 00:06:38.720 --> 00:06:43.279 engaging book that the non specialists would also find a 113 00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:46.800 lot of interest in. So I'm going to take your 114 00:06:46.839 --> 00:06:51.560 words as an indication that maybe I happily succeeded. 115 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:52.879 Oh you succeeded for sure. 116 00:06:53.079 --> 00:06:55.319 So but why don't you give us your perspective on 117 00:06:55.399 --> 00:07:03.000 the story of what is this beast of Jevo Da 118 00:07:04.040 --> 00:07:08.360 and how did you become interested in it? So what 119 00:07:08.720 --> 00:07:10.480 is the story? What's the basics story? 120 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:14.920 Well, the basic story began in the late spring or 121 00:07:14.959 --> 00:07:20.360 early summer of seventeen sixty four, when a mysterious or 122 00:07:20.439 --> 00:07:24.839 unknown creature began to attack and kill peasant women and 123 00:07:24.920 --> 00:07:29.720 children in this remote region of southern France, women and 124 00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:33.360 children who were tending to their flocks or their their 125 00:07:33.399 --> 00:07:36.839 herds of cattle, taking them to and from streams. 126 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:39.720 And over the. 127 00:07:39.639 --> 00:07:42.240 Course of the summer of seventeen sixty four, as the 128 00:07:42.439 --> 00:07:46.319 casualties began to mount, it dawned on the people of 129 00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:49.759 the je Vaudon that this was an unusual occurrence. There's 130 00:07:49.759 --> 00:07:54.000 something out of the ordinary here. And so as word 131 00:07:54.079 --> 00:08:00.879 of the ravages spread throughout the region, the beast, still unknown, 132 00:08:01.560 --> 00:08:06.800 also acquired a whole stock of fascinating characteristics. All sorts 133 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:10.680 of strange things were said about it. It was not 134 00:08:10.720 --> 00:08:13.680 always described exactly in the same way. In fact, there 135 00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:17.480 was a good deal of variation between the accounts that 136 00:08:17.519 --> 00:08:23.560 were given, but a stock of interesting characteristics was compiled 137 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:26.480 over the course of the summer, so much so that 138 00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:31.360 news of the story eventually spread to Paris and the 139 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:34.840 cities of northern France and northern Europe, Amsterdam, London, and 140 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:37.480 so on, and by the end of seventeen sixty four 141 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.679 it had become a riveting international news story because of 142 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:45.080 not only the continuing ravages of the beast, but also 143 00:08:45.159 --> 00:08:48.879 the strange things that were said about it. And so 144 00:08:48.919 --> 00:08:54.519 as seventeen sixty five dawned and the ravages continued, France 145 00:08:54.559 --> 00:08:58.399 found itself kind of embroiled in an international news story, 146 00:08:58.440 --> 00:09:01.399 one of the first of its kind, really, and that 147 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:04.600 continued throughout seventeen sixty five. Well throughout most of seventeen 148 00:09:04.639 --> 00:09:07.240 sixty five, it sort of petered out. Interest in the 149 00:09:07.279 --> 00:09:10.240 story petered out late in the fall, when there was 150 00:09:10.279 --> 00:09:14.200 a kind of well a false ending to the story, 151 00:09:14.879 --> 00:09:19.000 when Francois Antoine, who was the royal gun bearer who 152 00:09:19.039 --> 00:09:21.320 had been dispatched to the Javaldon by King lou of 153 00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:26.799 the fifteenth killed a large wolf and basically decided with 154 00:09:27.240 --> 00:09:31.879 a handful of co conspirators that we were going to 155 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:34.360 have to call this the Beasta di Chavaldon. Put an 156 00:09:34.440 --> 00:09:37.480 end to this thing. So they embalmed it. They embalmed it, 157 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.600 they sent it back to Versaille, they paraded it before 158 00:09:39.639 --> 00:09:43.440 the king, and even though everyone could see that there 159 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:45.919 was nothing all that extraordinary about this creature, there was 160 00:09:45.960 --> 00:09:49.480 just a kind of tacit understanding that this story had 161 00:09:49.519 --> 00:09:51.480 to be brought to an end. And so it was 162 00:09:51.519 --> 00:09:53.480 more or less officially declared that the Beasta of di 163 00:09:53.519 --> 00:09:54.879 Jaevaldon had been conquered. 164 00:09:55.840 --> 00:09:56.960 But that was really. 165 00:09:56.759 --> 00:10:01.000 Only the end of the large and very important phase 166 00:10:01.039 --> 00:10:05.159 one of the story, because in December seventeen sixty five, 167 00:10:06.039 --> 00:10:09.159 the attacks resumed, and over the course of the next 168 00:10:09.200 --> 00:10:11.840 eighteen months, another two dozen people were killed in more 169 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:13.799 or less the same fashion and in more or less 170 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:18.519 the same locale where the attacks had been concentrated throughout 171 00:10:18.519 --> 00:10:20.879 seventeen sixty five. And so, of course the people of 172 00:10:20.879 --> 00:10:27.240 the Jevaudon saw the whole story as one undifferentiated experience. 173 00:10:28.320 --> 00:10:30.039 They did not believe that the beast of the je 174 00:10:30.080 --> 00:10:33.519 Vadal was conquered. In September of seventeen sixty five. It 175 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:35.679 was clear to them that it had not been, and 176 00:10:35.720 --> 00:10:38.200 so the real end of the story didn't come until 177 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:41.639 June of seventeen sixty seven when a local huntsman, Jean Chastelle, 178 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:46.039 killed a large wolf and the ravages did indeed stop 179 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:51.080 after that. So that, in a nutshell, is the actual story. Now, 180 00:10:51.080 --> 00:10:55.480 what was the beast? I think it's almost certain that 181 00:10:55.559 --> 00:10:59.480 it was a wolf or wolves, and that's just based 182 00:10:59.519 --> 00:11:04.720 on all of the considerable circumstantial evidence about wolf attacks 183 00:11:05.200 --> 00:11:09.799 in early modern Europe from the sixteenth through late eighteenth centuries, 184 00:11:10.200 --> 00:11:13.799 we know that thousands of people died because of wolf attacks, 185 00:11:14.159 --> 00:11:21.639 and not only through rabies infected wolves, but perfectly healthy wolves. 186 00:11:22.240 --> 00:11:25.320 What's interesting is Ben and I had actually been researching 187 00:11:25.360 --> 00:11:29.799 this for more than a year, I guess, before your 188 00:11:29.799 --> 00:11:33.440 book came out, And like one of the things we 189 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:36.799 tell our listeners is we start you really should always 190 00:11:36.879 --> 00:11:40.600 start with the null hypothesis. You know, what's the evidence 191 00:11:41.279 --> 00:11:43.399 that there was a beast or that people even died 192 00:11:43.480 --> 00:11:45.679 at all? And in this case, in fact, why don't 193 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:47.679 I actually ask you that? So I know that it 194 00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:51.360 isn't a null hypothesis? But what is the evidence for 195 00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:52.360 all these deaths? 196 00:11:52.799 --> 00:11:59.240 Well, most of the evidence takes the form of burial 197 00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:05.399 notices composed by local cures who at the time at 198 00:12:05.440 --> 00:12:09.320 the time that they they wrote out and registered the 199 00:12:09.360 --> 00:12:15.759 burial notice usually described the body and hypothesized the cause 200 00:12:15.759 --> 00:12:21.039 of death, and consistently throughout seventeen sixty four seventeen sixty five, 201 00:12:21.919 --> 00:12:24.879 they would attribute the death of this or that young 202 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:30.799 shepherdess to labetferros, the ferocious beast, this beast that has 203 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:35.759 been terrorizing us for x number of months. Sometimes sometimes 204 00:12:35.840 --> 00:12:41.919 the wounds were described as the bite of a wolf 205 00:12:42.399 --> 00:12:48.879 or the ravages of a wolf. More often, the bodies 206 00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:52.360 were described as having been savaged by the ferocious beast, 207 00:12:52.519 --> 00:12:55.200 simply that this animal that we know we're contenting with. 208 00:12:58.200 --> 00:13:01.159 So we do know that over one hundred people died 209 00:13:01.519 --> 00:13:05.840 and scores more were attacked over a three year period. 210 00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:09.559 We do have documentary evidence that the deaths occurred. This 211 00:13:10.279 --> 00:13:14.840 is not make believe, and it was. It is certain 212 00:13:15.159 --> 00:13:20.440 that these deaths were caused by some ferocious creature, because 213 00:13:20.799 --> 00:13:27.200 there are enough eyewitness accounts of savaged bodies and decapitations 214 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:32.120 and grisly disembowelments. So we know the deaths occurred. We 215 00:13:32.159 --> 00:13:36.399 know that they would have been shocking to witness. It's 216 00:13:36.440 --> 00:13:39.519 not hard to understand why the locals would have been 217 00:13:40.759 --> 00:13:44.120 very energized by this whole phenomenon and would have been 218 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:46.440 led to imagine that they were facing a monster, not 219 00:13:46.519 --> 00:13:52.679 hard to imagine at all. But what they did not know, 220 00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:55.759 What they could not really know, given the state of 221 00:13:58.039 --> 00:14:03.639 knowledge about the European wide phenomenon, was that big, bad 222 00:14:03.679 --> 00:14:09.320 wolves were roaming all over the forests of Europe, killing 223 00:14:09.360 --> 00:14:16.759 people in very large numbers in the thousands, and the 224 00:14:17.480 --> 00:14:20.480 people of the Javaldon would not have even known necessarily 225 00:14:21.080 --> 00:14:25.919 of earlier, very similar episodes in recent French history. In 226 00:14:25.960 --> 00:14:30.039 the sixteen nineties to seventeen thirties the seventeen fifties, there 227 00:14:30.080 --> 00:14:33.320 had been other episodes very like this, not quite as 228 00:14:33.360 --> 00:14:37.320 extreme and not quite as long lasting, but very similar 229 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:43.720 in character in the Leone region, in the Swassanee, which 230 00:14:43.759 --> 00:14:47.960 is just to the northeast of Paris, in the the Mouzan, 231 00:14:48.080 --> 00:14:49.960 which is not even all that far from the Chevodon. 232 00:14:50.320 --> 00:14:52.440 But the peasants of the Jaevodon would have known about this. 233 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:55.200 I mean, they were illiterate, they were isolated, they live 234 00:14:55.279 --> 00:14:59.320 in a remote region, and so it's understandable that they 235 00:14:59.320 --> 00:15:05.639 would have all and back on folkloric explanations and superstitious 236 00:15:05.720 --> 00:15:09.159 lore to account for the horror they were living through. 237 00:15:09.159 --> 00:15:10.840 It perfectly understandable. 238 00:15:12.039 --> 00:15:13.879 Well, let me let me fall up on that, because 239 00:15:14.320 --> 00:15:17.600 I actually researched a monster called the chupicabra, and I 240 00:15:18.240 --> 00:15:20.639 had the benefit of the creature being a fairly recent 241 00:15:20.679 --> 00:15:22.960 phenomenon still going on today. So I could you know, 242 00:15:23.000 --> 00:15:24.679 I could interview eye witnesses, I could go to the 243 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:28.159 locations where they were. But in your case, I mean, 244 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:31.120 you're dealing with something two hundred and fifty years ago, right, 245 00:15:31.679 --> 00:15:34.320 so you know you can't go to night witness and 246 00:15:34.360 --> 00:15:38.200 interview her and figure out what's going on. So, I mean, 247 00:15:38.200 --> 00:15:40.399 I've done a fair amount of historical research in some 248 00:15:40.440 --> 00:15:42.799 aspects in my own stuff, But how did you tackle 249 00:15:42.840 --> 00:15:45.799 the task of researching it from that point of view? 250 00:15:46.279 --> 00:15:48.320 Yeah, I've read your book, by the way, and I 251 00:15:48.399 --> 00:15:54.639 really enjoyed it, thank you. Yeah, because this was regarded 252 00:15:54.679 --> 00:15:57.039 even at the time, was regarded at the time as 253 00:15:57.039 --> 00:16:02.360 an unusual occurrence. Lucky for me, the historian who wanted 254 00:16:02.399 --> 00:16:06.159 to kind of reconstruct the story. It was very heavily documented. 255 00:16:07.720 --> 00:16:10.960 The officials who were engaged in the hunts and all 256 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:15.240 of the hunters who came in sequence to search out 257 00:16:15.279 --> 00:16:21.519 this monstrous creature wrote copious correspondents to each other, to 258 00:16:21.639 --> 00:16:25.960 officials back in their SI, to officials in Montpellier, which 259 00:16:26.039 --> 00:16:31.559 was the administrative capital of the province. And in addition 260 00:16:31.639 --> 00:16:35.480 to the very dense correspondence of all of these officials, 261 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:41.679 there was a great deal of newspaper coverage, much of 262 00:16:41.759 --> 00:16:45.120 which really all of which needs to be taken with 263 00:16:45.159 --> 00:16:47.399 the grain of salt. You have to read it very carefully. 264 00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:54.000 But if you do put your skeptical lens on and 265 00:16:54.120 --> 00:16:57.519 read the newspaper coverage carefully and compare different accounts in 266 00:16:57.559 --> 00:17:01.759 different newspapers, you can pick up the basic details and 267 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:06.079 pieced together the sequence of events in a more or 268 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:10.000 less reliable fashion. So that's how I was able to 269 00:17:10.039 --> 00:17:12.240 do it. It just happens to be an incredibly well 270 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:16.960 documented story, one that, oddly enough, was largely ignored by 271 00:17:17.039 --> 00:17:20.400 historians for two centuries. But it was a very well 272 00:17:20.440 --> 00:17:21.359 documented case. 273 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:23.759 Well, let me ask you about that. 274 00:17:23.759 --> 00:17:26.880 I mean, your book is clearly the result of an 275 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:31.160 amazing amount of careful scholarship and research. So how long 276 00:17:31.200 --> 00:17:33.200 did it take you to write the book and what 277 00:17:33.880 --> 00:17:36.640 drew you to it and decided, Hey, I want to 278 00:17:36.680 --> 00:17:39.279 spend an enormous amount of time and effort and money 279 00:17:39.839 --> 00:17:40.400 tackling this. 280 00:17:42.200 --> 00:17:44.279 I think this is a great story. Though I have 281 00:17:44.359 --> 00:17:47.079 told it so often, I've begun to wonder about its veracity. 282 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:51.440 But I think this is the way it happened. I 283 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:56.640 was looking through images from the seventeen sixties in the 284 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:00.279 French National Library back in the summer of two read 285 00:18:00.720 --> 00:18:04.119 because I was finishing up work on another book, and 286 00:18:04.440 --> 00:18:07.279 the seventeen sixties happened to figure in this other book, 287 00:18:07.319 --> 00:18:09.519 and so I wanted some illustrations from that period for 288 00:18:09.559 --> 00:18:16.079 that book. And I stumbled on these engravings from seventeen 289 00:18:16.160 --> 00:18:22.279 sixty four that depicted this ghastly creature, and I saw 290 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:25.160 that it was labeled La bete douche Vadon the Beast 291 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:29.119 of the je Vadon. And all of these engravings, theyre 292 00:18:29.119 --> 00:18:32.599 about a dozen or so of them, had extensive captions 293 00:18:33.400 --> 00:18:37.279 that allowed me to piece together a narrative of the 294 00:18:37.319 --> 00:18:41.799 beast's exploits over a period of several months, almost a 295 00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:42.839 year in fact. 296 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:45.640 And it dawned on me that. 297 00:18:47.039 --> 00:18:49.960 Here was a story from the mid seventeen sixties that 298 00:18:50.039 --> 00:18:55.480 had captivated the French for over a year, had led 299 00:18:55.640 --> 00:19:03.359 artists to produce beautiful, finally detailed engraving of this obviously fantastical, 300 00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:07.720 mythical creature, and I soon learned after had also generated 301 00:19:07.759 --> 00:19:11.400 lots of newspaper coverage. And yet I knew next to 302 00:19:11.440 --> 00:19:17.519 nothing about it. And so I immediately recognized two things. 303 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:22.880 Here was an intrinsically interesting story that I wanted to 304 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:25.400 know more about, and that I thought readers would enjoy 305 00:19:25.960 --> 00:19:30.400 learning more about. And how funny it is that I, 306 00:19:30.440 --> 00:19:33.359 as a specialist of the eighteenth century, know next to 307 00:19:33.400 --> 00:19:38.200 nothing about this creature. How is this possible? And so 308 00:19:38.799 --> 00:19:41.759 I was doubly drawn to the story. I could see 309 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.079 it was an interesting story just on its own merits. 310 00:19:44.119 --> 00:19:47.960 But I also was curious to learn the history of 311 00:19:47.960 --> 00:19:50.079 the story, not just the history of the beast, but 312 00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:52.680 the history of the story. How the story itself had 313 00:19:52.680 --> 00:19:57.200 been well more or less driven underground, I would say, 314 00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:00.000 in the course of the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. 315 00:20:00.119 --> 00:20:02.400 So it turned out and then and then re emerged 316 00:20:02.440 --> 00:20:05.799 in a fantastical form in the twentieth century, but in 317 00:20:05.839 --> 00:20:09.279 a way that historians weren't interested in noticing or writing about. 318 00:20:09.480 --> 00:20:11.319 I mean, that's why I knew nothing about it. You 319 00:20:11.359 --> 00:20:14.920 don't find descriptions of the beast of the je Vadon 320 00:20:15.079 --> 00:20:19.759 and French history books, not those written by French scholars 321 00:20:21.039 --> 00:20:26.000 or Anglo American scholars. It's just it's absent, and so 322 00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:28.799 I was drawn to it for both of those reasons. 323 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:31.319 I just recently went to Disney and Epcot, and you know, 324 00:20:31.359 --> 00:20:33.880 they have at Epcot a French section with a lot 325 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:38.839 of French people working there, many of many from France, 326 00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:41.680 not just people who speak French, Quebec or whatever. And 327 00:20:42.160 --> 00:20:45.359 so I did this extremely unscientific thing is while I 328 00:20:45.440 --> 00:20:49.960 was there, I asked every French person I met about 329 00:20:49.960 --> 00:20:54.319 the beasts, and all my responses in this unscientific survey 330 00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:58.400 fell into three categories. They didn't know anything about it 331 00:20:58.440 --> 00:21:03.200 at all, or or they thought it was a serial killer, 332 00:21:04.319 --> 00:21:07.359 or they thought it was a single unusual animal, probably 333 00:21:07.400 --> 00:21:12.319 something from another country. So it was really an interesting 334 00:21:12.359 --> 00:21:14.200 I mean that was the only three and there were 335 00:21:14.240 --> 00:21:16.400 a lot of people I talked to and it always 336 00:21:16.400 --> 00:21:18.440 fell into one of those three categories, and most people 337 00:21:18.480 --> 00:21:21.680 did know about it, and by far most people thought 338 00:21:21.799 --> 00:21:23.880 that this was all the work of a serial killer. 339 00:21:24.319 --> 00:21:26.400 I love that, So I thought that was it. 340 00:21:26.640 --> 00:21:28.599 Yeah, I thought you might. 341 00:21:28.839 --> 00:21:31.440 Yeah, it's so typical. It is so typical. 342 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:34.160 Which ties to that which is really fascinating in your 343 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:38.079 book is you have you present this intersection here. 344 00:21:38.119 --> 00:21:41.039 You have these people with a poor local historical knowledge. 345 00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:42.960 They have their folklore or whatever, but they really don't 346 00:21:43.000 --> 00:21:46.279 have access to a quick way to look up what 347 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:49.920 local you know, history is regarding deaths from animals, right, 348 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:54.119 And then you've got this new technology of these quick 349 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:59.119 fast newspapers coming out and mixing lore, and then you. 350 00:21:59.119 --> 00:22:03.599 Have this political pressures and social pressures and religious pressures. 351 00:22:03.640 --> 00:22:06.839 And you're just laying it all out there while why 352 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:07.599 there is this. 353 00:22:07.559 --> 00:22:10.759 Amazing uh, I don't know. Next this might not be 354 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:13.680 the right word, but there's this this everything's aligned. What 355 00:22:13.680 --> 00:22:14.440 do you call that scissor? 356 00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:18.720 Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's true. That's the way 357 00:22:18.759 --> 00:22:19.640 I see it. Yeah. 358 00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:21.319 And the and I think you make a really good 359 00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:23.839 case that this this would I think it would have 360 00:22:23.880 --> 00:22:26.160 happened sooner or later somewhere. This just happened to be 361 00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:29.880 the first place where you had these these these natural 362 00:22:29.920 --> 00:22:36.279 events happening with ignorant people who could just spread news 363 00:22:36.359 --> 00:22:39.960 really quickly, which is has an amazing parallels to what 364 00:22:40.000 --> 00:22:42.400 we see now in the monster world. 365 00:22:42.480 --> 00:22:44.559 As far as I'm concerned, I'm a skeptic. 366 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:48.200 But we see this all the time with new claims 367 00:22:48.200 --> 00:22:51.400 where people find this the scantest of evidence and it 368 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:53.839 goes wild on the internet, like the mon Talk monster 369 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:57.440 for example. Just it's crazy, but it's just you do 370 00:22:57.480 --> 00:22:59.400 a brilliant job of laying it out there. 371 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:01.160 So well, thank you. 372 00:23:01.200 --> 00:23:03.680 I'm going to keep saying you're brilliant. Okay, bear with 373 00:23:03.720 --> 00:23:07.599 me anyway, not really a question there, but I just 374 00:23:07.599 --> 00:23:11.359 wanted to say, you make a really excellent case for that. 375 00:23:12.440 --> 00:23:12.759 Thank you. 376 00:23:13.559 --> 00:23:16.200 It does seem to me that the early and mid 377 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:21.920 seventeen sixties were just incredibly ripe for this kind of 378 00:23:22.039 --> 00:23:25.720 event to occur. I mean, it was almost, as I 379 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:29.480 suggested one of the early early chapters, it was almost 380 00:23:29.559 --> 00:23:32.519 as if if the beast had not exist, had not existed, 381 00:23:33.319 --> 00:23:35.079 or if the beast had not come along, you know, 382 00:23:35.079 --> 00:23:40.000 it would have had to be invented by someone, because 383 00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.559 it just it resonated in so many different keys and 384 00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:46.880 for so many different reasons that were bearing down on 385 00:23:46.920 --> 00:23:47.400 the culture. 386 00:23:48.640 --> 00:23:50.119 Well, let let me pick up on that, because I 387 00:23:50.279 --> 00:23:52.000 one of the things I enjoyed about the book was 388 00:23:52.039 --> 00:23:55.279 when you were when you were talking about the not 389 00:23:55.319 --> 00:23:58.200 only did you did geographical but also the political climate 390 00:23:58.400 --> 00:24:01.480 and the cultural climate, because I think, you know, for 391 00:24:01.759 --> 00:24:04.039 modern readers, you know, I mean, we can maybe go 392 00:24:04.119 --> 00:24:06.079 we can go see a film like, you know, a 393 00:24:06.119 --> 00:24:08.680 Brotherhood of the Wolf, or we can see some historical thing, 394 00:24:08.960 --> 00:24:10.799 and you know, we we sort of get a sense, 395 00:24:10.880 --> 00:24:12.880 you know, if the costume designer did his or her 396 00:24:12.960 --> 00:24:15.519 job right, then we have we have some sense. 397 00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:17.039 Of you know, what the people wore, what they ate. 398 00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:19.119 You know, you don't see people sling around cell phones. 399 00:24:19.799 --> 00:24:22.640 But it's it's hard for it's hard for I think 400 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:25.359 a lot of modern folks to really get a good 401 00:24:25.519 --> 00:24:28.680