I just learned about the 'Beast of Gevudan" last night and I was wondering what /an/'s opinions are of what it could have been?Yes, it was real.>"Between 1764 and 1767, a mysterious creature known as the Beast of Gévaudan terrorized southern France, killing over 100 people and injuring many more, causing widespread panic and a royal hunt led by King Louis XV. Eyewitnesses described a massive, calf-sized wolf-like creature with red fur, dark stripes, and a long tail, often viewed as a werewolf or exotic animal."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudan
>wolf-like creatureSo it was a wolf...
>>5116754it was probably a wolf, the french are a superstitious, cowardly lot, thats how a giraffe became the questing beast, and the crocodile became the tarasque
dog with mange
>>5116754Hyena from some rich tards personal zoo
>>5116754Hyena or Subadult lionPre revolution french nobility were really fucked in the head
>>5116754It was just a man in a gorilla costume
>>5116754It was probably a wolf that maybe killed a couple kids and was exaggerated into a monster by superstitious peasants
It was absolutely an example of a phantom animal. The "escape from a rich person's zoo" doesn't sound plausible because all descriptions of the creature involve some phrase like "nobody could figure out what the fuck it was". The Medieval world was not ignorant, they'd have noted some defining trait of the creature which they would themselves use to identify it, and no mention was made of unusual vocalizations that would make Hyena a likely explanation.>>5116763>giraffe became the questing beast, and the crocodile became the tarasqueNeither of these are true. Sometimes mythological creatures are just mythological. With the Beast of Gevudan, there was an actual corpse that was examined.
>>5116754Hyena escaped from a menagerie or a young lion
>>5116754Escaped spotted Hyena eating livestock, mixed with wolf attacks, and a serial killer.
>>5116754From the descriptions I always thought it would be a South American Maned Wolf or a subspecies of it.It's always been interesting because the documented accounts of the beast openly state it was not at all much like a wolf and that it looked strange. I never bought into the Hyena thing either because there's no written statements anywhere about the beast "laughing" and that would have been a pretty significant thing to document about it if it did.
>>5116833Not all hyenas laugh. Just the jolly ones.Ar maned wolves aggressive? I never thought that they were.
>>5116836They've been around for a while so they could have been much more aggressive then and those were the ones that were all culled by people while the timid and docile ones stayed alive and kept mating.
>>5116839Nah. Their behaviour simply doesn't match at all. They behave more like foxes than true wolves. Besides the fact that they only hunt small animals and morning even close to human size, they eat a fucktonne of wolfapples. They're the majority of their diet. Hard to believe The Beast would eat apples of any kind and I don't think wolf apples exist outside of South American savannahs and scrublands.
>>5116842>morningI meant "nothing". Fuckin' autocorrect
>>5116754The neck always screamed Hyena to me but the tail always throws that off for me I honestly don't know what the fuck the Beast of Gevudan was.
>>5116852Melanistic leopard>known voluntary maneaters>right size>right coloration
>>5116754>red fur, dark stripes, long tailIsn't that pretty likely a tiger? Tigers also are known to become prolific maneaters sometimes
>>5116754The last dire wolf.
>>5116836>Ar maned wolves aggressive? I never thought that they wereNot in the slightest
>>5116852All these artworks were made by people going off the same vague descriptions we have access to. The sculptors/painters never saw it>>5116911Way too small to be a tiger. It was supposedly 130 pounds and a tiger cub isn’t going to be very successful as a man eater
Watch the movie Pacte des Loups (Brotherhood of the Wolf). It reveals a theory about it in the ending. Not going to spoil it.
>>5116754I suspect the death toll was greatly exaggerated to add to the legend
>>5116815it is, because the description of the questing beast is how you would describe a giraffe by comparing it to other animals>body of a leopard, feet of a deer, tail of a lion, and head and neck of a snakeits similar to how kirin are described, every time someone talks about some weird animal with spots and deer feet is usually going to be a giraffe, because a giraffe is a really strange creatureand its very easy to draw the connection between a tarasque and a crocodile>a dragon, half animal, half fish, thicker than an ox, longer than horse, with sword-like teethits very common for giant river/water monster to be a crocodile, because theyre dangerous and made going to waterholes dangerous, and they didnt have access to the oceans to see whales or sharks
>>5116929>and appeared to be the size of a calf or cow and seemed to fly or bound across fields towards its victimsSounds very tigerlike to me
>>5116948>>a dragon, half animal, half fish, thicker than an ox, longer than horse, with sword-like teethSounds like a hippopotamus to me.
>>5116754>I just learned about the 'Beast of Gevudan" last nightHave you watched the movie yet? It's excellent.
>>5116932>>5116977Always looking for a good kino so thanks for the recs
>>5116754it was OP's ancestor
>>5116932>It turns out that the beast was a lion that Jean-François brought back from Africa as a cub that was tortured into becoming vicious and trained to wear spiked metal armor.spoiledfuck you
>>5116975Their teeth are blunt though
>>5116977why is there an injun
>>5116836Maned wolves are the most herbivorous of all canids and have no record of ever attacking people let alone eat them
>>5116754>red fur, dark stripes, and a long tailSome asshole noble got his hands on a tiger and released it near the village to see what happened.
>>5116754It was a escaped hyena
>>5116754>killing over 100 peoplethat sounds kinda unlikely, unless it's straight up supernatural. or several wolf attacks that were just attributed to the same animal
>>5116754>What was the Beast of Gravytown?>read the wiki article>described as wolf like>colored like a wolf>wolf attacks were rampant in the era in which the Beast was activeMust have been a cryptid.
>>5116949It wasn’t cow sized. When it was killed they weighed it and it was only 60 kg
>>5116833Why would a maned wolf be a maneater? Isn't a big part of their diet fruit? I would imagine somebody's shitbull would be more dangerous than this thing.>>5116815>It was absolutely an example of a phantom animal. The "escape from a rich person's zoo" doesn't sound plausible because all descriptions of the creature involve some phrase like "nobody could figure out what the fuck it was". The Medieval world was not ignorant, they'd have noted some defining trait of the creature which they would themselves use to identify it, and no mention was made of unusual vocalizations that would make Hyena a likely explanation.1764-1767 is only a decade before the American revolution and right after the French and Indian War. This was not the middle ages, this was the 1700s. Ancien Regime France only seems "medieval" because the social and economic structures of French absolutism retarded its development. Newton was already pretty much a century ago. There's a world of difference between the Middle Ages (til 1300-1400) and the 1700s when the age of exploration has been going on for centuries and now modern physics, chemistry and biology (with Linnaeus's Systema Naturae) are all taking off. French robe nobility/people who got state-funded sinecures like >>5116800 is alluding to legit included chemists like Lavoisier who discovered oxygen. The enlightenment and modern politics was also taking off, as was European domination of parts of the world with their own respectable old civilizations (like India). You should read Tim Blanning's Pursuit of Glory and Voltaire's Candide to get a feel for the period. It's probably one of the most fun in human history.
>>5117908>Ancien Regime France only seems "medieval" because the social and economic structures of French absolutism retarded its development.And even then mostly in rural areas the cities had salons and other modern era shit where you absolutely would not get burned for witchcraft* or whatever else dumbass redditors think would happen if you showed people an Iphone in any era before trannies and nigger rights*witch burnings were primarily a product of the protestant reformation which was still early modern and not medieval btw
>>5117688Plenty of swords were less pointy than this.
>>5116754Le pacte des loups was kino, there, I said it.
>>5116754>being forced to retreat and let go of its prey because of 4/5 children beating it with sticksKWABeast
>>5116754With all that sucess in actually killing people sounds like a tiger>red fur>stripes
>>5116754Perhaps it was just a mutant wolf; sometimes individuals of a species are born that surpass the rest.Although the short legs make me think that perhaps it was a jaguar imported from America.
>>5116754A werewolf
>>5116754>A weird wolf looking thingIt always sounded like a hyena to me
>>5116754People want to believe that it was an escaped hyena or a jaguar or whatever but the most likely answer is that it was just a big fucking wolf
>>5116754Likely a series of wolf/wolfdog attacks, be it from one pack or several, combined with mass hysteria. I like the idea that at least the "main" beast was some giant fuckass wolfdog since those can be pretty vicious.That or the anomalies from Primeval are real and some ancient beardog or hyaenadont was running about France munching on the common folk. Would make a cool episode.
It was a sheep in wolves clothing.
>>5116754It was a werewolf, I know that here is not /x/ but that things exist
>>5116754>Eyewitnesses described it as large as a calf, with reddish fur, a black stripe on its back, and a large chest.A jaguar.
>>5116754>far bigger than any wolf>reddish-brown>long, thin tail that was said to have a tuft of fur at the tip and had a single dark stripe that ran down its back>witnesses specifically said it would pounce prey, climb on top of cattle, and heavily relied on sharp clawsThis is a big cat. Like a sub-adult lion that slipped from a noble's menagerie
>>5119358I don't know, it would be strange if nobody knew what a lion was in the 1700s, I mean, it was and is the most famous animal in the world and the lion symbol was everywhere.
>>5119447We're talking uneducated peasants here who couldn't read or write.
>>5119452But even the authorities?
>>5119452I am 99.9% sure that the average uneducated peasant in 1700s West Europe was known what was a Lion
>>5119447When the point of reference to what a lion looks like for majority of people is things like this, I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't the first thing to come to a farmer's mind, especially if the beast was a younger lion that hasn't grown out a mane yet.
>>5116755If u knew to describe something as wolf-like rather than a wolf, that would usually suggest it wasn't a wolf
>>5119358>far bigger than any wolfLike someone mentioned before this was bullshit. When it was finally shot and weighed it was only 130 lbs
>>5119492or a wolf with mange
>>5116754Overblown folktale about that time a big wolf found out people are free food.
Andrewsarchus
>>5119301I think they would have mentioned the spots instead if it was a jaguar
>>5116815>The Medieval world was not ignorantThey believed their imagination was real and were superstitious as fuck, especially the french. Also unable to pass information ahead without altering it to seem more impressive and badass, see >>5117752. They were ignorant as hell
>>5116754it was a giant civet
>>5116754Id wager it had some form of gigantism, whatever it was
>>5116754Sounds like a werewolf to me
>>5121285This
>>5116763tfw when you're taking your Tarasque for a walk and it eats another French peasant
First off wolf attacks at this time were very common. Particularly in France and Italy. The Turku Wolves in Finland for example killed 30. You’ll find rashes of wolf attacks all over France often numbering in 5-10 fatalities each during the period. Add in hysterical and dramatic Frenchmen lying and embellishing everything like they always do and you have le terrible monster.There’s the possibility of it being a rabies outbreak but the fact that the kids were eaten makes me doubt it.Most common scenario is a medium sized pack of wolves figured out human children were as easy a meal as their sheep were and did their thing. Foppish French Dandy nobles shot some wolves and called it a day. The job was half done. Some more kids got ate. Chastel shot another one. The pack fragmented and fucked off.I would also like to note that the whole menagerie and wolf/dog theories are a direct throwback to the Wolf of Gysinge which was a pet wolf that escaped and attacked 31 killing 12.The Russian wolf attacks are where the juicy shit is though. Russian wolves murder hard.
It was a large dog or dogwolf.
>>5121476Dogwolves aren't real
>>5121476>>5122680what's a dogwolf
I'm partial to the Cryptozoologicon take of it being a giant mustelid.
>>5116977That movie was pure shit.I hated it. Had my girlfriend watch it a few months ago because ahe'd never seen it before.She hated it too.At least I warned it was shit.The acting is terrible.The plotline is shit.The movie is basically an excuse for exhibitionistic Hollywood whores to violate us with their disgusting nudity.May as well have been a retarded porn.
>>5119358Could have been a beardog.
>>5119627This is possible.
