Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts

Monday 17 August 2015

GUEST POST: Elizabeth Bathory - Female Werewolf

by Jazmina Cininas

Jazmina Cininas is a practicing visual artist, curator, arts writer and lecturer in Fine Art Printmaking. Her elaborate linocut portraits reflect a long-standing fascination with representations of female werewolves, and draw on a wide range of sources such as historical records of witch hunts and werewolf trials, psychiatric and medical literature, fiction, folklore, cinema and the internet. Jazmina’s chapter ‘Fur Girls and Wolf Women: Fur, Hair and Subversive Female Lycanthropy’ appears in She-Wolf: A Cultural History of Female Werewolves (Manchester, 2015). For the record, Jazmina is not a werewolf.


Erzsébet was frequently mistaken for a vampire, 2011
reduction linocut
edition: 20
image: 37.0 x 28 cm
paper: 43 x 34.3 cm

In 2011, I created the linocut portrait Erzsébet was frequently mistaken for a vampire commemorating the early seventeenth-century Hungarian countess Erzsébet Báthory, as part of my Girlie Werewolf Hall of Fame PhD project. In his 1980s’ book, Dracula was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, Raymond McNally argues that Erzsébet is at least partly responsible for inspiring Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while Hungarian director Peter Sadsy christened Erzsébet Countess Dracula in his 1970 horror film of the same title. It is a moniker that has persisted not only in popular culture but also amongst Báthory scholars, including Tony Thorne, who named his 1997 biography Countess Dracula: The Life and Times of Elisabeth Báthory. That Erzsébet has come to be immortalised as the Countess of Blood demonstrates just how entrenched vampire lore has become in the Báthory persona; however her earliest supernatural incarnation in popular culture in the West was as a werewolf. It is this lesser known incarnation of Erzsébet’s persona that I commemorate in my portrait.

In his 1912 anthology of werewolf lore, Werwolves (most of it his own invention) Elliot O’Donnell differentiated vampires from werewolves on the basis that the former was a transmissible disease while the latter was not, declaring: “Vampirism is infectious… Lycanthropy is not infectious.” The statement indicates not only that the infected bite is a relatively recent development of werewolf lore, but also that there was sufficient overlap or confusion between vampirism and lycanthropy to necessitate the articulation of a clear distinction between the two at the time. Werewolves found themselves swept up in the vampire wave which peaked in 1730s Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, sustained within the established concepts of witchcraft, animal familiars and cannibalistic devil worship. Etymology reveals a special intimacy between the occult entities, particularly in Eastern Europe. The Russian volk-odlak, from volk meaning ‘wolf’ and dlak meaning ‘hair’, originally designated the werewolf; however it has come to refer exclusively to vampires, and we see a similar shift in occult allegiances in the Serbian vukolak/vukodlac, the Bulgarian vrkolak, the Czech vilkodlak and the Greek vrykolakos. In Romania, Greece and East Prussia it was furthermore believed that a werewolf could return as a vampire after death or vice versa. Among the other elements of werewolf lore absorbed into the later vampire tradition are the tell tale omens of paranormal inheritance such as having been born with teeth or a tail.

Sabine Baring-Gould first brought Erzsébet’s story to the Western imagination in the English language’s first in-depth examination of werewolfism, The Book of Werewolves. Published in 1865, some thirty-two years before Dracula, Baring-Gould’s text suggests that in the late nineteenth century the Countess was more properly considered a werewolf than a vampire. Baring-Gould conforms to nineteenth-century protocols of self-censorship in not providing a surname, simply referring to the Countess as “Elizabeth __”, which may go some way towards explaining why her association with lycanthropy never took hold in the same way that her directly-identified association with vampirism did, although the former is not completely forgotten. An online search of The Columbia Encyclopedia sees Erzsébet “celebrated in legend as a female werewolf”, and she also rates an entry in Brad Steiger’s 1999 encyclopaedia of all things shape-shifting, The Werewolf Book.

Čachtický hrad, where Báthory was imprisoned from 1610-1614.
Site visit, European Werewolf Odyssey, 20 April 2009

Erzsébet Báthory remains a contested figure, even amongst historians. The general consensus is that Erzsébet was arrested and imprisoned in her own castle tower at Čachtice in the final days of 1610. She was charged with witchcraft and the reputed torture and murder of anywhere between thirty-six and 650 young women from her local village and the lesser gentry, although she was never formally convicted of any crime, unlike four of her servants, believed to be her accomplices. She finally died in her tower prison in 1614.

In his chapter, ‘Posthumous Verdicts’, Thorne points to a number of writers who question the motives of those who brought the accusations against Erzsébet and the legitimacy of the court proceedings against her. In an age and society that saw mistreatment of servants as the nobility’s prerogative, violence as commonplace, and medical practices that were often akin to torture, Thorne argues that the shaming and incarceration of the powerful and wealthy widow was suspiciously convenient for a number of her political rivals, especially those who owed her money. Numerous books, films and visual representations perpetuate the myth that Erzsébet bathed in the girls’ blood in her belief that it would preserve her youth and beauty, and this salacious detail has become the default visualisation of the Countess, as a Google image search will attest. This was certainly the form chosen by the McFarlane toy company for their Elizabeth Bathory action figure, released in 2004 as part of their Monsters Series 3: Six Faces of Madness collection.

McFarlane Toy Company, Elizabeth Bathory painted action figure,
McFarlane’s Monsters Series 3: Six Faces Of Madness,
released June 2004, 15.2 cm

The series is known for its graphic depictions of notoriously bloodthirsty serial killers or tyrants from throughout history, and adds the macabre touch of three heads impaled on a candelabrum in the Báthory figurine while the Countess indulges in a literal bloodbath. Yet this latter motif did not appear in the Báthory legend until 130 years after her death, first appearing in László Túróczi’s 1744 travelogue of the Hungarian nation, A Short Description of Hungary together with its Kings.

Although there are numerous representations of Erzsébet in visual culture, only one portrait of her is known to have been painted from life; however it has either disappeared or is of contested authenticity. Painted in 1585, the portrait inspired a number of copies soon after, leading to speculation and contradictory claims as to which is the original painting. The portraits in question all follow the same template: standing pose in regal dress with laced, deep red bodice, pearl choker/chain and distinct white lace collar.

Anonymous, 17th century copy of the lost 1585 original portrait of Erzsébet Báthory

The question “Who is the Real Erzsébet?” posed on the bathory.org website is pertinent not only to the five portraits on display, but also to the myriad personifications of the Countess in literature and film, very few of which, however, acknowledge her early ‘career’ as a werewolf.

In my own interpretation of the Báthory legend, I wanted to draw particular attention to the lycanthropic motifs that have generally been overlooked in visual representations of the Countess without overly romanticising or demonising my subject or neutralising the wolf. My intention is to imbue my female subjects with additional agency through the wolf, part of which requires acknowledgment of the wild canid as top predator. In Erzsébet’s case I was keen to explore whether it was possible to address the complexities of the historical person and her subsequent mythic persona, without casting her as either victim or monster.

The extravagant Hungarian lace collar and the muted maroon and ochre tones, along with the placement of the crest in the top right hand corner, nod towards the historical portraits of the countess, thereby locating my Erzsébet within her ‘legitimate’ visual tradition.

Báthory crest

In their chapter ‘The Social Biology of Werewolves’,* W.M.S. Russell and Claire Russell claim that the ‘E’ in the Báthory coat of arms is constructed from a vertical jawbone intersected by three wolf’s teeth (they are actually dragon claws), and also mention a legend in which Erzsébet was followed about by a she-wolf, reinforcing lycanthropic allusions. I have included this latter element in my portrait as well, further integrating woman and wolf through merging the facial features of the two species.


Julie Delpy as Erzsébet Báthory (top) in Delpy (dir.), The Countess (2009)

Julie Delpy as the werewolf Serafine Pigot
in Anthony Waller (dir.), An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

From amongst the multiple versions of the Erzsébet Báthory portrait and multiple interpretations of the countess in film, I have chosen Julie Delpy to be the face of my Erzsébet. The French-born actress directs herself as the youth-obsessed lead in her 2009 film of the Báthory legend, The Countess, and also played the female werewolf Serafine Pigot in the 1997 film, An American Werewolf in Paris, thereby serving to further reinforce the lycanthropic references of my portrait. Delpy’s eye has also been merged with the wolf’s profile, offering a less monstrous imagining of the confluence of the lupine with the feminine than seen in An American Werewolf in Paris.

I have resisted the blood bath and fangs, however the ruby red perfume bottle offered up by the extended, bloodied hand nods to popular myths surrounding the Countess and her belief in the cosmetic virtues of blood. The title, Erzsébet was frequently mistaken for a vampire, acknowledges the intimacy between werewolf and vampire lore, as exemplified in the Báthory legend.

Detail of working drawing for Erzsébet was frequently mistaken for a vampire,
2011, digital collage

I have excluded the fang motif from my portrait of Erzsébet Báthory, even though I have used it in other portraits. In the case of Erzsébet, I was concerned that fangs would visually locate her too strongly within the vampiric tradition, reinforcing this version of her culturally constructed persona, whereas I wished to draw attention back to her largely neglected lycanthropic legacy.

Although dominant visualisations of Erzsébet Báthory see her largely aligned with the vampiric tradition and its inherent stereotypes, I hope that returning the focus to her earlier cultural incarnation as a werewolf takes a step towards redressing this largely under-represented aspect of the countess’ mythos in visual culture, while also locating Erzsébet at a significant crossroad of an evolving tradition of representing lupine femininity.




* in Animals in Folklore, edited by J.R. Porter and W.M.S. Russell (Cambridge, 1978)

Friday 3 October 2014

Some Historical Female Werewolves

I don't think it'll come as much of a surprise if I say that I enjoy writing and reading about female werewolves. However, every so often something gives you a moment of pause. I sometimes get asked by people if I can tell them anything about 'real' or 'historical' female werewolves. I think they probably want me to tell them an exciting story about a renegade wildwoman, running with the wolves and sticking it to the man. In truth, I don't know any stories like that.

What I do know is that, for a brief period of history, an accusation of lycanthropy carried a death sentence for some women. Though not as widespread as witchcraft, lycanthropy was one of the crimes investigated by the Inquisition and records survive of men and women who were tried for this crime.

Here are some of the historical 'female werewolves' who faced trial in Europe:

Marie Barnagoz (burnt at the stake in 1551)
Perrenette Tornier (burnt at the stake in 1551, head displayed on a stake as a deterrent to others)
Jeanne Guyenot (burnt at the stake in 1551)
Appoline Garnier (interrogated as an accomplice to her husband's lycanthropy, released from custody in 1573)
Perrenette Gandillon (lynched in 1598)
Clauda Jeanprost (burnt at the stake in 1598)
Françoise Sécretain (died in prison in 1598)
Clauda Guillaume (burnt at the stake in 1598)
Thivienne Paget (burnt at the stake in 1598)
Clauda Gaillard (burnt at the stake in 1598)
Guillauma Frayre (executed in c.1605)
Guillemette Barnard (found innocent of lycanthropy but guilty of witchcraft, sentenced to banishment in 1605)
Perrenette Glaon (burnt at the stake in 1611)
Jeanne Horriel (refused to confess under torture, found innocent of lycanthropy but guilty of blasphemy, fined in 1611)
Oudette Champon (paid for a lawyer to mount a defence, acquitted in 1629)
Pierrette Vichard (refused to confess under torture, acquitted in 1657)
Renoberte Simon (acquitted in 1660)

Information about these women and the circumstances of their interrogation, trial and punishment can be found in Rolf Schulte's contribution to my book on the cultural history of female werewolves, which will be published by Manchester University Press in 2015.

Monday 12 August 2013

CFP: Little Horrors: Representations of the Monstrous Child

Book Project

Call for Chapters

Gone is the Victorian innocence of childhood. We have entered the age of the monstrous child, the little horror.

Each historical period can be seen to have prioritised a different facet of the child, the Victorian era idolised the innocence of the pre-pubescent child, the twentieth century the disaffected teenager, whilst the early twenty-first sems to be that of the monstrous child. Whilst global organisations such as UNICEF and Save the Children promote the sanctity of childhood as a fundamental human right, popular culture and empirical, sociological data would intimate something else. Here children are not configured as the wealth of the family and the community, but are seen as an economic burden, a luxury or even a parasite. Far from being the repository of all society holds dear about itself, the child becomes something at once uncontrollable and monstrous, not to be loved and cherished but feared and expelled. Whether supernatural or just plain wicked, the child becomes a liminal being caught outside of normalised categorization; not mature, not socilaised, not under the rule of law and not conforming to adult nostagia over what they should be.

Is there a relationship between the declining birth rate in the West and the increasing representation of children as an alien other? However, as witchcraft accusations against children in Africa and representations in the Asian horror film genre show, this is not just a Western phenomenon. So just what are the underlying reasons, if any? This volume aims to assemble the evidence from history, psychology, sociology, literature and media studies to map the extent and meaning of this representational development.

Topics to include:

- Witch children, witchcraft accusations against children, children using witchcraft accusations
- Magical children: children with magical or superhuman powers, the wunderkind
- Werewolves and other shapeshifters: children as animals
- Fairies and changelings: the folklore of strange children
- Undead children: vampires, zombies and others
- Ghosts and demonic children: children possessed, children as demons
- Child crime and culpability: moral evil and legal responsibility
- Monstrous children through history: physical deformity and mental health issues
- Children as embodiments of other aspects of supernatural horror
- The monstrous as a new role model for children
- Children as adults and adults as children
- Society and children and public and private spaces
- Immigration, post-colonialism and foreign adoption
- War children and child soldiers

A brief bio and abstract of circa 300 words should be sent to -

For literature and media studies: Simon Bacon
For history and social sciences: Leo Ruickbie

Deadline for abstracts: 1st September 2013

There's no project page as yet, but you'll find these same details here

Tuesday 18 June 2013

Liturgy in History: International Study Day

Call for Participants

We are delighted to announce a call for participants for Liturgy in History, an international study day for graduate students and early career researchers at Queen Mary’s Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern Studies.

Liturgy in History: a full-day workshop exploring liturgy in practice in the medieval and early-modern periods.
When: Tuesday 19th November, 9:30 – 17:00 (lunch provided)
Where: Queen Mary, Mile End Campus, room tbc

One of the most exciting developments in medieval, renaissance and early modern studies over the past decade has been a renewed historical appreciation of liturgical sources. Liturgies, so crucial to understanding the lived experiences of religion, were seedbeds for cultural production across Europe, and were deeply contested in the changing confessional landscapes of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Liturgy in History will provide a unique opportunity to engage with liturgical sources and access the expertise of researchers in the field.

Three speakers – Professor Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen), Professor Emma Dillon (King’s College London) and Dr. Beth Williamson (University of Bristol) – will guide participants through the structure and formulae of liturgical sources. The musical, visual, architectural and performative aspects of the liturgy will all be carefully considered and approaches to liturgy re-interrogated. The day will culminate in a trip to a nearby renaissance church which will help situate them in their context. We would be delighted to welcome international participants and students from diverse disciplines, to reflect the multidisciplinary focus of the day itself.

Participants will not only have the opportunity to learn more about the current state of liturgical research but will also be given the chance to offer their own insights into this pivotal aspect of medieval and early modern studies.

Please see below for a provisional schedule of the day.

If you would like to join us please email Hetta Howes. Attendance will be free of charge, but places are limited to ensure discussion and participation, so it is essential that you book your place.

Liturgy in History International Study Day, 19 November 2013

9:30–10:00 – Registration, tea and coffee

10:00–11:15 Professor Nils Holger Petersen (University of Copenhagen): An introduction to the structure and formulae of liturgical sources in the Christian West

11:15–11:25 – Coffee break

11:25–12:30 Professor Emma Dillon (King’s College London): Sung components of liturgy – how was liturgy was presented and experienced in medieval and early modern Europe?

12:30–13:10 – Lunch

13:10–14:25 – Dr. Beth Williamson (University of Bristol): Space and Sight in the Liturgy

14:25–14:35 – Coffee break

14:35–15:25 – Prof. Miri Rubin: Round Table discussion

15:25–17.00 – Visit to an historic church to consider liturgy within a church, how religious changes affected ritual, and to experience liturgical music from across the period

Sunday 23 October 2011

Welcome to the Medieval Carnival!

It's my pleasure to host this month’s edition of Carnivalesque, showcasing the best in recent blogging on ancient and medieval history.

However, I’m actually going to start with some stories from prehistory. Something really rather 'ancient', is this piece on Quigley’s Cabinet about artefacts discovered in South Africa that point to the existence of a 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop. The History Blog discusses human-inflicted wounds on a 13,800-year-old mastodon skeleton, which prove that 'American hunting is 800 years older than we thought'. And something quite close to my ginger heart, The Ancient Standard tells us that the gene responsible for red hair and freckles may have been found in Neanderthals living 100,000 years ago in Europe.

Stonehenge Thoughts offers a story about a new full geological map of the UK the British Geological Survey, and how this might be of use to those interested in the 'bluestone quarry' at Rhosyfelin and the mystery of the Stonehenge bluestones.

Moving into the early Middle Ages, at Medieval History Geek, Curt Emanuel reviews Nicholas Everett’s Literacy in Lombard Italy, c. 568-774 and Michelle Ziegler discusses childhood illness and mortality in early medieval Ireland, in 'The Mortality of Children, Ireland 683-685' at Heavenfield. 'Even the Bishop of Girona doesn’t always win' writes Jonathan Jarrett at A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe. And what's this? The Staffordshire Hoard blog looks for suggestions and explanations of their 'mystery object'.

A story that has captured the attention of history bloggers this month was the 945th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. Again, this appears on numerous blogs and websites, including the Ordnance Survey blog, Mr Brame’s Blog, Kaye Jones and E.C. Ambrose. The Historical Novel Society asks nine authors to post on the anniversary on their own sites, and collects the posts on the HNS blog.

And another piece of medieval news this month is the research done into the discovery of the UK's first fully intact Viking burial site in Scotland, discussed on Medieval News. I'm glad I can mention this story, as the co-director of the project, Dr. Hannah Cobb, is an archaeology teaching fellow at the University of Manchester (my own institution).

Perhaps one of the most popular 'medieval' stories of the past month has been the reconstruction of the 'Black Death genome', using DNA samples taken from a fourteenth-century plague pit in East Smithfield, London. I won't list all the blogs that pick up the story, as there are many, but among them are Contagions, nature.com and MIT's technology review. For Francophone readers, the story also appears on Docbuzz.

Elsewhere, King's College London's Henry III Fine Rolls project offers a week in the life of Henry III: Sunday 16 October to Saturday 25 October 1261. New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art blogs about rose hips and their significance in medieval seasonal celebrations at The Medieval Garden Enclosed. And at In the Middle, Karl Steel writes about the Canarian's Ship of Fools.

The British Museum's fabulous Treasures of Heaven Exhibition came to a close on October 9th. Over on the museum’s blog, metalworker Jamie Hall discusses medieval metalwork. The 8th October was the anniversary of the execution (or lynching?) of Cola di Rienzi (killed in Rome in 1354). ExecutedToday marks the date with Rienzi's story.

On Esmeralda’s Cumbrian History & Folklore, Diane McIlmoyle introduces us to the Cappel: Cumbria’s 'spooky black dog'. Haligweorc offers a piece by Derek Olsen on liturgical naming: 'Naming Spiritual Communities in the Sarum Rite'. And there's an introduction to medieval superstitions about revenants at Pure Medievalry.

Finally, although it's not a blog (and a little older than strictly appropriate for this Carnival), I thought this Flickr collection was worth a mention. Juliana Lees has been collecting images of pre-1200 Eastern textiles found in Western churches and cathedrals, with a particular interest in Silk Road influences.

Hope you enjoyed this tour of ancient and medieval blogging. If I've missed anything, leave a comment and let me know. Next month's Carnivalesque will be an early modern edition, hosted by Anchora.

Friday 7 October 2011

CFP: Thinking Though Time and History in Feminism Colloquium

Birkbeck, University of London, 23 March 2012

Keynote Speakers:
Rebecca Coleman (Sociology, Lancaster University) & Lynne Segal (Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck)

There has been an emergent call within the field of gender and feminist studies to consider themes that might be broadly situated under the umbrella term of “temporality”. Nostalgic and apocalyptic narratives of feminism abound in both popular culture and academic writing, with feminism’s death or out-datedness being the dominant narrative. Countering these narratives is crucially about unravelling the logic that makes them viable as well as interrupting their production. Explorations of alternative narratives have productively emerged from work in the field of collective and personal memory, new technologies as they impact feminist organizing, and creative activism and archival practices. There is a continued political need to explore alternative mechanisms of telling feminist time, alternative relationships to be forged with the recent and historical past and alternative means for considering how feminism might forge a future for itself both in and out of the academy.

This colloquium aims to provide the opportunity for an interdisciplinary, creative and exploratory approach to time and history in feminism. We welcome contributions from academics, artist and activists working in the area. Contributions could include but are not limited to, paper presentations, digital media, photography, film, poetry and performance.

Contributions could consider, but are by no means limited to, some of the following questions:

- How does the personal, social and collective memory of the feminist past create, sustain, or challenge feminism in the present?
- How might we forge relationships between temporal periods that resist generational affects of duty or shame?
- How might remembering and forgetting occur not only within the spaces of activism and the institution, but also between them?
- How can we think critically about how, for example, citing, course building, and curating are practices of remembering and forgetting?
- How might feminist activists, artists and theorists respond to the narratives of ‘the death of feminism’ or the ‘post-feminist’ era?
- How does time, and the various ways we think of it, both enable and constrain politics?
- Is the time of activism the same as the time of the institution?
- What are the theoretical and methodological challenges of working within feminist archives?
- How can we account for the multiple and diverse voices that comprise ‘feminism’ and the relationships between these voices? How can the use of creative methodologies enable the exploration of these issues?

Please submit a 200 word abstract by 25 November 2011 to Carly Guest and Sam McBean. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Interview with D.L. King

D.L. King is a YA and picture book author, currently querying literary agencies for representation. Her first YA novel, Scarlette Hood, is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in 18th France, against the backdrop of the Beast of Gévaudan 'werewolf' attacks of 1764-67. While retellings of fairy tales (including Little Red Riding Hood) are big box-office business at the moment, I was intrigued by King's project, and the influence of French 'werewolf' history on her work. I caught up with her recently to find out a bit more.

She-Wolf: So, tell me a little bit about your book...

D.L. King: Scarlette Hood is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood set in 18th-century France against the historical Beast of Gévaudan 'werewolf' attacks. Laced with horror, romance and Gothic undertones, this novel explores the dark side of the fairy tale, yet is grounded in historical reality. It answers the question: what if Little Red Riding Hood had been a real person.

SW: What made you decide to rewrite the story of Little Red Riding Hood?

DL: Back in January 2010, I was looking for some hip cross-stitch patterns. After doing some research, I found a really cool design by the Japanese designer Gera, which was a scene from Little Red Riding Hood.

SW: Fantastic! And the idea grew from there?

DL: As I was stitching away, some questions pulsed through my brain: what if LRRH was a real person? Where would she have lived? And if she was real, wouldn't that make an awesome YA premise? My fingers walked over to the keyboard, and before I knew it, I came up with a rough outline and notes for Scarlette Hood.

SW: A few retellings of Little Red Riding Hood have replaced the Big Bad Wolf with a werewolf (I'm thinking particularly of Angela Carter and Catherine Hardwicke's new film). What interests me about your work, though, is that it is based on a historical case of werewolf attack. Tell me more about the Beast of Gévaudan.

DL: A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away - well, June 30th, 1764, in the Gévaudan province of France, to be exact! - a fourteen-year-old girl named Jeanne Boulet was tending her flock near the town of Langogne. It seemed like any other day, until Jeanne encountered a strange animal. Little did she know she was about to become the first victim in a series of killings committed by an unidentified animal known as La Bete, the Beast of Gévaudan. The Beast was responsible for brutally killing almost one hundred people between 1764-1767, in the Gévaudan province (now the department of Lozère and part of the Haute-Loire department), but oddly enough this monster only attacked humans, never the livestock attended by peasants.

SW: This must have caused quite a panic! What did the Gévaudan people do?

DL: Many hunters, locals and soldiers tried to kill it, but the beast was too elusive. Finally, the case gained national attention when King Louis XV put up a reward of 6000 livres and sent his royal Gun-Bearer and soliders to the province to slay the animal.

SW: And did they?

DL: As the story goes, the King's Gun-Bearer M. François Antoine did indeed shoot a large wolf and brought it back to Versailles, claiming it as the monster and collecting his reward. But as the peasants were about to find out, this wasn't the end of their nightmare. More people were found dead and further sightings of the Beast surfaced. And like every great story of old, a hero was needed...

SW: And who was the hero of this particular tale?

DL: As local legend tells, a roughnecked native named Jean Chastel supposedly shot the Beast through the heart with a single silver bullet, putting an end to the monster's bloody three-year reign. And, allegedly, this was where the Hollywood idea of the silver bullet came from. Anyhow, after Chastel shot the animal, an autopsy was conducted. Inside the carcass, the surgeons claimed to have found part of a child's femur bone. This was enough evidence for the peasants to dub this monster as the Beast.

SW: And what did they do with the body after the autopsy?

DL: The animal was stuffed with straw and brought to Versailles by Chastel. However, King Louis basically laughed him out of the court, saying that the Beast had already been killed. Dejected, Chastel went home and left the carcass. It was then that it began to reek and was thrown out like last night's chamber pot contents.

SW: So, where did the Beast go?

DL: Just like the giant top secret government warehouse filled with countless crates in the Indiana Jones films, there is a rumour that the Beast's remains can be traced to the Paris Museum of Natural History's underground secured storage. However, no-one can be sure, and the Beast continues to be a cryptozoologist's dream - and one of the greatest werewolf mysteries of all time.

SW: It's a fascinating story. What is it about this tale that interests you in particular?

DL: I would say the actual mystery of what the Beast was is one of the most fascinating aspects of the legend. The local peasants thought it was a werewolf, but I've heard theories ranging from the Beast being a sub-species of hyena that escaped from a French menagerie, or some type of animal that escaped from a travelling circus, a pack of wolves that became accustomed to human flesh after scavenging battle fields, to an animal trained by a serial killer to do the murderer's dirty work - Jean Chastel has been accused of the crime.

SW: What's the strangest theory you've heard?

DL: The most outlandish idea I've heard was that the Beast was the infamous French author and aristocrat, the Marquis de Sade! After discovering this, I couldn't resist adding the Marquis in as a character in Scarlette Hood.

SW: What made you decide to combine the story of the Beast with Little Red Riding Hood?

DL: After reading Charles Perrault's version of LRRH, I was shocked to find that his original tale was much darker than the common story we all grew up with. Told as a cautionary tale warning young women of men's wolfish sexual appetites, this early version was very moralistic and resulted in a tragic ending for the heroine: the wolf 'devours' her.

SW: So this was the inspiration for your own telling of the tale?

DL: Even though I borrowed from all versions of LRRH, I knew I wanted to make my story dark like Perrault's and set it in France. But I also thought the novel would be more interesting if the wolf in the fairy tale was a werewolf. Lo and behold, as I was reading all the different versions of the tale, I found another French translation entitled The Grandmother where the wolf was in fact a bzou - a werewolf. [ed: 'bzou' is an Old French word for werewolf, and appears in some medieval French versions of the Little Red Riding Hood tale] So, I had my werewolf, knew I wanted to use a dark angle, and set the story in France, but I still wanted to pin down a real setting to use as a backdrop. After a little more digging, I got lucky. I found out about the Beast of Gévaudan after researching werewolf history and mythology. So I dressed up the wolf in the original fairy tale as the Beast, and wrote Scarlette Hood as if Little Red Riding Hood might have really happened.

SW: The Beast of Gévaudan is not a widely-known story - where did your interest in this period of French history begin?

DL: I've always been interested in history, but in college I had a roommate who loved the movie version of The Scarlet Pimpernel with Jane Seymour. Based on the novel and play by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, it a secret agent tale about a man who tries to save French aristocrats from the guillotine during the Reign of Terror. We watched it together, and I loved it. That was probably the start of the real love affair with French history. I also read Germinalby Emile Zola for a college class (it tells the tale of a coalminers' strike in northern France in the 1860s), and this further fed the fire. And finally, I read Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and watched The Count of Monte Cristo and Les Miserables around the same time, and I was hooked for life.

SW: What about your interest in 'real' werewolf attacks?

DL: I've always liked werewolves, vampires, etc., but really my interest in 'real' werewolf attacks evolved out of this project. I really wanted to place Little Red Riding Hood in a historical setting and use a werewolf instead of a wolf in my novel. So I rose to the occasion and, by researching, I learned of the Beast of Gévaudan attacks.

SW: You must have had a lot of research to do.

DL: Oh man, I did a ton! In addition to reading as many versions of Little Red Riding Hood that I could find, I read a bunch more books including: A History of Everyday Things by Daniel Roche, The Great Cat Massacre by Robert Darnton, Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked by Catherine Orenstein, Wolf-Hunting in France in the Reign of Louis XV by Richard H. Thompson, and watched the History Channel's documentary on the Beast entitled The Real Wolfman.

SW: You're writing for a teen audience, but do you think this story would appeal to adult readers as well?

DL: As I tell people about it, I notice there's a lot of adult interest as well.

SW: Is this the genre of novel you like reading yourself?

DL: I will read anything as long as it's a good story. It doesn't matter the genre. Although, I do tend to lean more towards the supernatural.

SW: Of course! So, I guess the obligatory question is... werewolves or vampires?

DL: As far as paranormal, really, anything goes!

SW: Couldn't agree more. Thanks for talking to me. And best of luck with the book.


D.L. King is currently querying agents for representation. For more information about King, and about Scarlette Hood, please visit her website.