Jawnomicon

Loup-Garou

Also called Loup Garou, Garou, Garoul, Garwaf.

The loup-garou is the werewolf of French folklore, a living person who walks by night in the shape of a wolf — whether by curse, pact, or neglected religious duty — whose legend travelled with French settlers to Québec and Louisiana.

At a glance

Tradition
French folklore
Region
France
Trait family
The Night-Comers
Symbols
Wolf
Kin
Rougarou (derived from this figure)

Kinship

Lines of descent added by hand and approved one at a time.

Near this figure

and 4 more

Symbols

Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Form

  • Shapeshifts human animal
    why

    In the core belief, a living man sheds his human shape by night and walks as a wolf or wolf-like beast, returning to his own form by day.

  • Cursed into monstrous form
    why

    In many tellings the transformation is a punishment: a man who neglects his religious duties — in French-Canadian tellings, seven years without making his Easter communion — is cursed into the beast's shape.

Behaviour

  • Invoked to frighten children into obedience
    why

    Like its Louisiana descendant, the loup-garou was long invoked to frighten children into obedience and away from the night woods.

  • Emerges at night to attack
    why

    It prowls by night, falling on livestock and on travellers caught late on lonely roads, and one of the oldest motifs of the tradition is the revealing wound: a wolf injured in the night is recognized the next morning by the same wound on a neighbor's body.

Utility powers

  • Shapeshifting
    why

    In the core belief, a living man sheds his human shape by night and walks as a wolf or wolf-like beast, returning to his own form by day.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.