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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always

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Speaker 1: for tuning in to our our our Halloween Phase podcast.

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Speaker 1: Critics will call it it's like a blue phase, kind

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Speaker 1: of spookier. That's right, I am today, I am Ben. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That's our super producer, Casey Pegro on the ones and twos.

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Speaker 1: So this is part two of our episode on the

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Speaker 1: Beast of and uh. And we were talking off Mike

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Speaker 1: before we started part two. Uh, Gabe, I don't know

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Speaker 1: how much of it made it on the air in

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Speaker 1: part one, but Gabe Lizier, who is our our north

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Speaker 1: star in the world of research, really surprised us with

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Speaker 1: this with with some of the research here, like in

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Speaker 1: a way that I don't know, Noll makes me feel

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Speaker 1: like maybe maybe we're nerds. I'm not sure. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think everyone who's listening to part one will know

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Speaker 1: that about six of the content of that episode is

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Speaker 1: us gushing about the movie Brotherhood of the Wolf. Hopefully

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Speaker 1: everyone's watched it by now, or maybe save it. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. We can't control what you do. Um, but

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Speaker 1: there's a section in the research that that Gabe provided

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Speaker 1: us about pop culture references to this story, The Beast

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Speaker 1: of Jevodont, and he mentions a Robert Lewis Stevenson story

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Speaker 1: UM that references this event to some degree, and the

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Speaker 1: movie Teen Wolf starting Uh starring Michael J. Fox. I

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Speaker 1: kind of think he was joking, because that certainly is

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Speaker 1: a pop culture reference to were wolves. But in my

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Speaker 1: mind and both of our minds, clearly the number one

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Speaker 1: reference to this story and pop culture is the Brotherhood

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Speaker 1: of the Wolf. It is known as they say, a

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Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, which is adapted from the song about Empire.

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Speaker 1: George ore R Martin. Please put out Wind's Winter. He's

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Speaker 1: not gonna do it. You can't tell him what to do.

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Speaker 1: God when you know one day anyhow, Yeah, you're right,

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Speaker 1: you're at Gabe. We were. We were surprised if we

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Speaker 1: thought maybe you were were pulling a fast one on us,

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Speaker 1: because uh, we're the three of us are such big

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Speaker 1: fans of you do that. We were like, obviously, gave

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Speaker 1: is why is Gabe not talking about Brotherhood of the Wolf.

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Speaker 1: This is very important to us. Ben. I love that

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Speaker 1: we have such a shared appreciation for this movie, UM,

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Speaker 1: and a shared appreciation for this story. So let's get

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Speaker 1: back into it. This story kept developing and either kept

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Speaker 1: being these really interesting characters that would present themselves. We've

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Speaker 1: got the you know, the disgraced soldier, We've got the

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Speaker 1: scrappy young lad. You know, it's it's really I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's it's perfect for making a movie about UM. And

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Speaker 1: a new character enters the fight, uh, a nineteen to

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Speaker 1: twenty year old young woman named Marie Jean Valet uh

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Speaker 1: and she uh went after the beast with a pike

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Speaker 1: of her Ownly, this was a bayonet attached to a pole.

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Speaker 1: I would say, that's still pretty pike. Like it's a

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Speaker 1: it's an improvised pike. And on August eleven, seventeen sixty five,

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Speaker 1: she was crossing the River desag Casey d E s

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Speaker 1: g E S probably des the River des Casey on

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Speaker 1: the case with her sister UM, armed with said improvised pike,

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Speaker 1: and managed to give that beast a stick in, you know,

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Speaker 1: gave it a good old poke in the chest and

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Speaker 1: impaled it, you know, drew blood. But still, you know,

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Speaker 1: in keeping with what we know about this creature, it

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Speaker 1: got away again. But Valet became this like an heroine.

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Speaker 1: You know, they dubbed her the Amazon and the Maid

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Speaker 1: of getting God of a I'm sorry now forgotten that

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Speaker 1: jod Devon the Maid of Jeeval. This is all stays

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Speaker 1: in um and I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that's

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Speaker 1: the badass woman in the Brotherhood of the Wolf. Probably

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Speaker 1: inspired by this real life character. Uh, much more ninja

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Speaker 1: like in the movie though, if I'm not mistaken. But

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Speaker 1: such a fun story and grizzly. It has all the

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Speaker 1: things that we love about spooky historical tales. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: we have these human interest stories of brave individuals surviving

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Speaker 1: these attacks and in some cases wounding the beast or

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Speaker 1: appearing to But the official hunters didn't have much luck

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Speaker 1: at all. You know, we know that they went out

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Speaker 1: and they killed wolves, you know, more than a thousand likely, uh.

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Speaker 1: And they also kind of everybody assumed this was like

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Speaker 1: an uber version of a wolf. This was a really big,

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Speaker 1: like dire wolf kind of thing. It just made sense.

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Speaker 1: I will add a quick trigger warning if anyone's considering

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Speaker 1: watching Brotherhood of the Wolf if you are bothered by

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Speaker 1: animal violence, not the movie for you, because a lot

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Speaker 1: of the stuff that we're talking about here there are

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Speaker 1: piles and piles of dead wolves that you see like

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Speaker 1: this this whole period here where people were presenting these

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Speaker 1: beasts to the court. Um, you see a lot of

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Speaker 1: grizzly just actual facts wolves. I mean, I'm sure they

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Speaker 1: didn't actually slaughter a bunch of wolves, but it's very

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Speaker 1: realistic and very gory. And if that's something that that

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Speaker 1: bothers you, I would I would maybe give this movie

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Speaker 1: a pass. But um, you're right then the hunters were

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Speaker 1: really flummixed. Uh this Gean Charles Uh and his son,

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Speaker 1: a hunting team from Normandy, made a big show of

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Speaker 1: coming to Jeval Dance who to put an end to

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Speaker 1: this once and for all. And they're the ones that

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Speaker 1: were boasting they'd already killed wolves and that they you know,

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Speaker 1: we're up to the task. But in fact, the no

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Speaker 1: one really knew if it was a wolf or not.

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Speaker 1: All of these disparate descriptions of the thing really made

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Speaker 1: it super unclear. Um, and we'll get into some of

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Speaker 1: the possibilities and a little bit. Yeah, for now, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna follow the career of the beast. So eventually, after

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Speaker 1: repeated failures, folks like the Dino Vols give up and

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Speaker 1: the King is getting irritated. This is making the king

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Speaker 1: look bad, you know what I mean. So he eventually

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Speaker 1: sends his own personal bodyguard, one Francois Anton. He is

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Speaker 1: seventy one years old, so he's no spring spring chicken.

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Speaker 1: He and his nephew on September set shoot a very

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Speaker 1: large wolf near an abbey at chase It, which is

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Speaker 1: assumed to be the beast. They were like, this wolf

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Speaker 1: was so big, This wolf could easily eat children. It's

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Speaker 1: gotta be this is this is the wolf we're looking for.

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Speaker 1: And Francois is awarded. He gets money, he gets actual

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Speaker 1: titles of nobility. The corpse of the animal, and this

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Speaker 1: is what they're alluding to in Brotherhood of the Wolf.

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Speaker 1: The corpse of the animal is stuffed by a taxidermist

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Speaker 1: and sent to the royal court at first Side to

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Speaker 1: be displayed. But if you've seen the movie, uh, you

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Speaker 1: know that the taxidermy job looked really really bad. They

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Speaker 1: actually I think they uh Casey correct me if I'm

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Speaker 1: wrong on this, but I think they were in the

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Speaker 1: film instructed to sort of up right and make it

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Speaker 1: scarier big time. They broke its jaw even I believe

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Speaker 1: to make it have a wider, kind of scarier looking

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Speaker 1: ma um. And yeah, you're right. They almost did like

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Speaker 1: a what do they call those things, like a cock

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Speaker 1: and tree kind of situation. Yeah, where they like, you know,

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Speaker 1: do a Frankenstein's Monster mishmash of parts in it, you know.

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Speaker 1: And it was a real hack job. It was literally

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Speaker 1: literally Yeah. And that's again another thing that might trigger

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Speaker 1: you about the movie. This this is in the movie

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Speaker 1: as well. So all's well, that ends well, not psych

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Speaker 1: you thought, as we say in the world of memes. Uh.

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Speaker 1: The attacks began again. They resumed in December, and this

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Speaker 1: comes to us via volume of the Parisian Illustrated Review.

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Speaker 1: But this time, just like with any other good sequel,

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Speaker 1: the beast seemed different. At least it was behaving differently.

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Speaker 1: It used to be afraid of live stock of cattle, right,

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Speaker 1: I get it. Cows are big. There's spooky if you

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Speaker 1: if you get a mad, you know. But this time

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Speaker 1: it wasn't scared of them. It was was it the

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Speaker 1: same beast that was just like a gritty reboot of

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Speaker 1: itself or was there a new second beast? Didn't matter

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Speaker 1: to the Royal Court. They decided to ignore these new

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Speaker 1: attacks and again they had very strong control over the press,

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Speaker 1: so they just look. Our official line is it's over.

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Speaker 1: Francois Antoine killed the creature. But what I'm saying is

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Speaker 1: they didn't. Well yeah, but that's the you know, that's

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Speaker 1: the pr line is that it's done. Um. But then

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Speaker 1: there's another outbreak in June of seventeen sixty seven. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then another nobleman gets involved, trying to make you know,

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Speaker 1: just make a name for himself and be part of

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Speaker 1: the whole fracas here. Uh, Marquis de Chair I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: go with that, um, And he organized his own hunt.

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Speaker 1: And then there's this guy farmer name is Jean Chassell

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Speaker 1: who had been involved in a previous hunt but was

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Speaker 1: actually thrown in prison by Antone um who was in

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Speaker 1: charge because he like did a bad job navigating and

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Speaker 1: led his men into a mucky, swampy bog type place.

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Speaker 1: But then all was forgiven when Chassell was able to

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Speaker 1: bring down the beast, you know, a beast with a

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Speaker 1: with a shot from his from his musket, and that

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Speaker 1: was on Mount Moche on June nine of seventeen sixty seven. Amazing,

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Speaker 1: And they have the body and they do an autopsy

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Speaker 1: and they find human remains inside. This may not have

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Speaker 1: been the beast all the time, but this was definitely

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Speaker 1: something eating people in the woods. And then they find

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Speaker 1: some interesting stuff, don't they As they dig in, they say,

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Speaker 1: you know, this animal has some real non lupine, non

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Speaker 1: wolf stuff about it. The attacks ends at this point,

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Speaker 1: and it was assumed at the time that the beast,

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Speaker 1: the beast, this man that had killed was the beast,

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Speaker 1: but people were still kind of there. There's like a

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Speaker 1: conspiracy theory about whether or not it was in actuality

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Speaker 1: a wolf Chestel by the way, like the Amazon has

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Speaker 1: a statue in his honor. Of course, what the hell

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Speaker 1: was this thing? Um? There's some possibility of these that

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Speaker 1: get bandied around. A Eurasian wolf, which I'm guessing is

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Speaker 1: just a much larger dire wolfeed type wolf like you're

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Speaker 1: talking about. Hey, a, I love this one, and this

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Speaker 1: is very much what they kind of went with in

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Speaker 1: Brotherhood of the Wolf, an armored war dog, only they

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Speaker 1: took it. They took it a step further. Yeah. Indeed, um,

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Speaker 1: a striped hyena that's in keeping with that black stripe

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Speaker 1: that they've seen. And I'm sure there's some red headed

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Speaker 1: hyenas out there in the world. Um or an escaped lion.

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Speaker 1: Perhaps some nobleman had it as an exotic pet in

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Speaker 1: their menagerie and and it jumped the fence and wreaked

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Speaker 1: havoc on the countryside. Yeah, or some kind of prehistoric predator,

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Speaker 1: which is super exciting and also probably not true or

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Speaker 1: my favorite. Okay, so I should have mentioned this. Uh

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Speaker 1: Chastel when he fires that famous shot, and when he

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Speaker 1: kills what is largely acknowledged to be the beast, he

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Speaker 1: uses a silver bullet. Silver bullet kills this creature. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And so you can't blame people for saying, this is

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Speaker 1: clearly a werewolf. This is werewolf country, that's where wolf

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Speaker 1: uh loop gatto here we are. This is just a

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Speaker 1: silly question. But like when was werewolf mythology first? Kind

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Speaker 1: of when did that come around? I wouldn't have even thought.

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Speaker 1: I would have thought would have been later than that.

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Speaker 1: But I guess maybe it's one of those tailors old

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Speaker 1: his time about humans transforming into creatures. Yeah, in centuries before,

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Speaker 1: there have been cases where people were accused of being werewolves,

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Speaker 1: usually through some satanic pact. And uh, this was very

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Speaker 1: you know this was very in ligne when supernatural beliefs

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Speaker 1: of the time. People would have been aware of the

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Speaker 1: case of Peter Stump who was accused of being a werewolf.

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Speaker 1: He he actually was probably a German serial killer. But

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Speaker 1: we have to remember werewolves were very much in play.

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Speaker 1: These were real things people were genuinely afraid of. So

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Speaker 1: one thing that really stood out, at least to me,

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Speaker 1: I think to all three of us when we were

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Speaker 1: looking at early descriptions of the beast, is that that

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Speaker 1: detail you mentioned earlier and all which is consistent and

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Speaker 1: eyewitness accounts, the stripe, the stuff going on along the spine, right,

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Speaker 1: that's what led people to think it was as striped hyena.

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Speaker 1: Just as we mentioned earlier. Maybe some eccentric aristocrat had

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Speaker 1: this in their private menagerie and it escaped. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: native to France, so you would have reasonably thought, what

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Speaker 1: does this look like? It looks like a wolf, but

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Speaker 1: it's not a wolf definitely. So that's like, based on

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Speaker 1: that evidence, that's a pretty good argument that it might

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Speaker 1: be a hyena, but our hyena known to attack humans,

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Speaker 1: not really. Oh and by the way, I realized literally

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Speaker 1: in doing the recharch for this episode, that a dire

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Speaker 1: wolf is a real thing. It's a prehistoric predator that

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Speaker 1: we talked about being one of the possibilities um, not

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Speaker 1: just a made up Game of Thrones things. So that's

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Speaker 1: that's interesting. Also potentially on that list with something called

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Speaker 1: a bear dog um or a hyena don which I

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Speaker 1: guess is a prehistoric hyena. And don't forget our farmer

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Speaker 1: friends Chassel. There's a fascinating theory that even that that

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Speaker 1: has jumped on pretty heavily in our favorite movie Um

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Speaker 1: that he himself actually trained the beast to uh to

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Speaker 1: murder humans um in an effort to deflect attention from

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Speaker 1: some crimes of or another that we don't really know

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Speaker 1: uh what that might have been. Uh. And another option

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Speaker 1: that we've touched on earlier but that definitely is a thing,

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Speaker 1: is the idea that might and I think it's our

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Speaker 1: favorite too. We talked about it offline ben Um, the

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Speaker 1: idea that it was a juvenile lion, and this gets

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Speaker 1: some sand in some of the reporting that we've read. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: think about it. The idea is just like the hyena thing.

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Speaker 1: Like we mentioned earlier, it escapes from some private menagerie

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Speaker 1: and it begins to do it. Lions do it. Hunts

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Speaker 1: with an ambush strategy. It sees his prey by the

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Speaker 1: neck and possibly if you do the physics on you know,

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Speaker 1: pressure per square inch for the jaw, it could possibly

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Speaker 1: decapitate a human being. And that's why people like Carl

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Speaker 1: hans Talk argue that a that that a lion was

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Speaker 1: the ultimate culprit. It's also true that lions have been known,

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Speaker 1: uh in some cases to prey on humans for food,

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Speaker 1: like the lions of Tsavo. I was about to say

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Speaker 1: the ghost in the darkness, that's the ghost that was

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Speaker 1: that's so funny. I was literally I've got that up

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Speaker 1: on wiki right now with Val Kilmer and who else

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Speaker 1: is that? Michael Douglas a very similar story. Actually, there

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Speaker 1: are these lions of Tsavo in Africa that are just

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Speaker 1: wrecking the villages and murdering the hell out of people,

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Speaker 1: and these two hunters are out to get them and

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Speaker 1: and they I believe those lions are in a museum,

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Speaker 1: maybe the Field Museum in Chicago, if I'm not mistaken,

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Speaker 1: I believe, Yeah, I believe they are in a museum.

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Speaker 1: Lions typically if they're if they're hunting humans. It's going

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Speaker 1: to be because they may have aged out of being

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Speaker 1: able to hunt more efficient and more delicious prey, like

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Speaker 1: their teeth may have worn down. That's one of the

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Speaker 1: big theories. So this could have happened. This could have

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Speaker 1: happened in France. And again, just like with Hyena, the

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Speaker 1: eyewitnesses of the time, we're probably not familiar with living lions.

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Speaker 1: They may have heard of one, they may have seen

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Speaker 1: drawing or a woodcut of one. But this problem is

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Speaker 1: compounded because the drawings that they would have seen of

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Speaker 1: a lion would almost certainly have been drawings with a

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Speaker 1: big main, like an adult lion has us. A juvenile

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Speaker 1: male lion doesn't have a main. What it does have,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a stripe running down its back. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the lions of Tsavo didn't have mains either, and um,

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Speaker 1: they you know rampage. I believe it was had to

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Speaker 1: do with the British railway bridge construction and Tsavo uh

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Speaker 1: in kenya um And that's you know. And then the

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Speaker 1: reason that the two white characters were brought in wasn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily because had anything to do with them caring about

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Speaker 1: you know, indigenous people. It was more about you know,

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Speaker 1: the continuing the construction project. Um. But these lions, if

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Speaker 1: they were juvenile lions, and they wouldn't have had Mainz either.

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Speaker 1: You're absolutely righting. So now we have to go to

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Speaker 1: what is largely considered the most credible theory. Womp womp

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Speaker 1: wolves a wolve for groups of wolves. Are they at

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Speaker 1: least super wolves or I I don't see. So the

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Speaker 1: idea is this one is that the that the region

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Speaker 1: Deevil don't did have a serious wolf infestation, but they

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Speaker 1: were just wolves out Wolven, you know, doing what they

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Speaker 1: could to eat, and they had a lot of competition

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Speaker 1: from a bunch of other wolves. And the question about

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Speaker 1: why it became the beast became such a terror, at

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Speaker 1: least to smith is is really a question of the

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Speaker 1: clergy's agenda. There's the idea that the clergy took was

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Speaker 1: very opportunistic and leverage these deaths to try to reinstill

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Speaker 1: the fear of God in the population. So the clergy

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Speaker 1: folks were saying that this is these attacks are happening

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Speaker 1: because God is punishing the French because you got your

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Speaker 1: keysters kicked in the Seven Years War and checks out.

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Speaker 1: Now it's a divine instrument, so of course it has powers.

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Speaker 1: Uh Still it's it's weird, and you know, we see

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Speaker 1: that recurrent theme that I'm so glad you mentioned about

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Speaker 1: recovering one's masculinity because the hunter who had been thrown

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Speaker 1: in jail was doing the same thing as do Hamel.

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Speaker 1: And that's that's the story. But one one thing for

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Speaker 1: every fan of cryptods in the audience today, there are

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Speaker 1: some flaws in the theory. Uh, the beast attacks lasted

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Speaker 1: for a pretty long time, longer than they would have

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Speaker 1: if it was just like one single wolf with rabies,

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Speaker 1: it would have died. Yeah, it's a really good point then,

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Speaker 1: and it is a bit of a kink in the

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Speaker 1: armor of this version of the events, added to by

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Speaker 1: the fact that none of the survivors got rabies, which

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Speaker 1: definitely have happened, you know, if they were bitten or

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Speaker 1: you know, winged by a rabid wolf. But what do

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Speaker 1: you think? What what what led I mean the clergy

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Speaker 1: stuff I get, and all the journalism and in them,

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Speaker 1: you know, making a big to do about this, and

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Speaker 1: all the different the telephone effect of all of these

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Speaker 1: different descriptions, But why didn't anybody just do you think

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Speaker 1: there weren't people that were attacked. They said, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was a little wolf. I got wolfed, you know, right,

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Speaker 1: because the true story might uh not be s flattering.

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Speaker 1: I think maybe that's the case. I don't know. It's

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Speaker 1: interesting though, um the way these things happen to take

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Speaker 1: on a life of their own, and you know, sad

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Speaker 1: for all the folks that died horrifically in this story.

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Speaker 1: But damn if it's not a good story, like really

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Speaker 1: enough of a story to make a an intentional two

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Speaker 1: parter that we you know, we tend to do those

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Speaker 1: after the fact, but really really cool, so many interesting

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Speaker 1: twists and turns and interesting characters, and uh, if I

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Speaker 1: have if I've said it once, I've said a thousand times,

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Speaker 1: checkout Brother of the Wolf. You won't be disappointed unless

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Speaker 1: you're squigged out by animal stuff. Well, then you won't

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Speaker 1: be disappointed. You'll be horrified. It isn't that what Halloween?

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Speaker 1: It's all? So when one last note I think would

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Speaker 1: be great to end on and maybe of interest to you,

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Speaker 1: Casey in your alternate identity across the pond, if you

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Speaker 1: want to get some some firsthand experience with this story,

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Speaker 1: why not visit the Museum of the Beast of javel Don,

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Speaker 1: which is a thing. It's open now. The case of

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Speaker 1: the Beast remains largely unsolved to this day. Who knows,

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Speaker 1: maybe strolling around through one of the twenty two dioramas, uh,

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Speaker 1: you may become the person who finally solves the mystery.

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Speaker 1: This museum is big to make it play the whole

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Speaker 1: afternoon for interesting. I love a good diorama. And I

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Speaker 1: know this is only a side story, but the Lions

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Speaker 1: of Tsavo another fascinating story about wild animals. We know,

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Speaker 1: we know what these were though they were in fact lions.

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Speaker 1: They are taxidermy at the Field Museum in Chicago. So

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Speaker 1: if that if that's you know, close by to where

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Speaker 1: you are, definitely worth checking that out as well. And

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Speaker 1: there's a great episode of stuff you miss in history

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Speaker 1: class on the Lions of Tsavo as well. Oh man,

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Speaker 1: I missed going to museums. That's why the things I

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Speaker 1: missed the most. So that is our story for today.

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Speaker 1: That concludes our two part series on the Mystery of

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Speaker 1: the Beasts of javl Don. Thanks as always and in

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Speaker 1: today's at episode, especially to our super producer Casey Pegram

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Speaker 1: patron saint of being patient on a podcast YEP, and

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Speaker 1: patron saint of French pronunciation assistants as well. Agreed thinks

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Speaker 1: also to Alex Williams who composed this track thanks to

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Speaker 1: the Brotherhood of the Wolf, which again, like, I have

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Speaker 1: the DVD and I was telling myself I would reward

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Speaker 1: myself by rewatching it after we did this episode. I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to see if the director, Christoph Ghnz, did anything

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Speaker 1: else interesting because it is such a weird movie and

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Speaker 1: obviously we were both very taken by. Let's see, he

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Speaker 1: did a movie called Crying Freeman which looks very Highlander esque.

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Speaker 1: It's got Mark di costcos in it um and look,

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Speaker 1: it's got a ninja sword or a Samurai sword situation

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Speaker 1: on the cover. He also did oh, he directed the

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Speaker 1: Silent Hill movie, but he did Psychonomical and as well

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Speaker 1: for an anthology series is an ecronomic con anthology for

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Speaker 1: a film? And what's better than love God? And thanks

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Speaker 1: of course to uh our own Beast of ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Okay, the quister is he a lion? Is

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Speaker 1: he a striped hyena? Is he a human being? Question

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Speaker 1: remains unsolved to this day. We'll see you next time, folks.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.