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Author
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Comment
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(10/30/03 10:24 am)
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Le Loup Garou
Just wondered if anyone has any ideas about the evolution of the idea behind le Loup Garou. In French sources the term seems to be generally used to refer to werewolves. But in tales from around New Orleans ( I have just recently returned from a visit there) le Loup Garou seems to have grown into a huge and monstrous wolf with very mysterious qualities!! Maybe a wolf of both French and Caribbean influences, I don't know? Fascinating and intriguing certainly, and any ideas, thoughts or angles on it would be interesting.
Alison
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tlchang37
Registered User
(10/30/03 2:13 pm)
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Le Loup Garou
I had never heard the term before, but a friend of mine loaned me a book on tape last week: "Fool Moon" by Jim Butcher, which discusses way more varieties of werewolves, including a loup garou, than I had known existed.
It's not a terrific book, ( it got me through the project I was painting, however) but a loup garou was one of the main 'big bad's of the story. The multiple werewolf variations are defined about 1/3 of the way in. I've already returned it, so I can't tell you more - and I have no idea of it's 'accuracy' - but that part of the book was very interesting.
If you don't mind, please post what you end up finding out. I'd be interested in knowing!
Tara
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Nalo
Registered User
(10/30/03 6:55 pm)
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Re: Le Loup Garou
I'm fascinated by the place where the French loup garou stories meet the Caribbean and the American south and transform. But I'm working on a story on the topic at the moment, and so I don't want to talk myself out. Might help, though, to look up the terms "lagahoo" and "rugaroo," which are both ways of saying "loup garou."
-nalo
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(10/30/03 7:48 pm)
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Dire wolf.
The moment I saw 'huge and monstrous wolf', I thought 'dire wolf'. Then, my mind tapered to 'Beast of Guevudan (sp?) - which either pointed to a werewolf or a wolf or wolf hybrid larger than the normal wolf.
Hmmm.
Blackwolf
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Carrie
Unregistered User
(10/30/03 8:23 pm)
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The Werewolf Delusion
You might want to check out the above book by Ian Woodward. He does a nice job looking at the different aspects of the werewolf from antiquity to modernity. On page 69 he writes of a visit by a Montreal doctor of philosophy -- Dr. Joseph de Nobilis -- and 16 of his students to the mountain Loup Garou in Qeubec. It's an interesting book with some nice historic plates -- Worth a quick note in any event.
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/2/03 4:20 am)
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A huge indefinable fear?
Thanks for all your ideas and references which have been most interesting. I think what I find particularly fascinating is seeing an idea like the werewolf changing and transforming because of the influence of different cultures. It seems very appropriate then that le Loup Garou is sometimes a shape shifter. Sometimes it's a huge wolf but sometimes it's a horse and so forth... The fact that it has also grown into something much bigger and more mysterious would suggest to me that it's really expressing a huge indefinable fear. Maybe a fear of people losing their particular identity and culture in the great melting pot...
Alison
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(11/2/03 8:39 am)
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And perhaps...
... that people also fear their primal urges/instincts (their bestial sides, if you will) and the werewolf motif is there to describe that fear or manifest it in a proper 'form'/incarnation. What more appropriate is to fix that fear onto a creature who is already been seen as a nefarious animal.
And shape-shifters sometimes raise that same kind of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of primal urges/instincts. When - say - a werewolf shifts into his or her werewolf form, is he or she totally bestial? And from what I gather from reading all the werewolf stories (be it real or fiction), there is that element of fear embedded, the fear that the werewolf (or the were-animal in question) has already lost his or her humanity and have allowed the animal side to take over. So, you get tales whereby in order to make a werewolf turn back to human form, you have to call his or her name.
Blackwolf
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/3/03 9:15 am)
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a snake warning
Does anyone know a bit about the snake that warns people of the presence of le Loup Garou? It is supposed to cross your path when he is about. I'm not sure where that idea developed but it's certainly not found in European stories of werewolves.
alison
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Ron McCutchan
Unregistered User
(11/3/03 6:18 pm)
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Native American influence?
I'm not well-versed in either Cajun or Native American traditions, but what little I've read of the loup garou reminds me a bit of shapeshifters in Navajo culture (though this impression comes via Tony Hillerman). Anyone have any thoughts that might point to a connection?
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/4/03 4:14 am)
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Re: Native American influence?
Yes, that seems to fit with Nalo's "rugaroo" reference. The "rugaroo" also seems to be a wolf like creature that appears when Catholics(????) are not following their religious teaching. Seemed a bit bizarre to me as this appeared to be a Native American story in the source I found. So it certainly looks like there are a lot of cultural influences at work. A great mixing of ideas. I do think that's why it's so interesting if a little confusing to say the least. The fear of losing one's cultural identity certainly seems to fit anyway. Any more thoughts on this would be interesting.
Alison
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Niniane
Sunyata
Registered User
(11/4/03 2:39 pm)
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Re: Le Loup Garou
Interesting thread. Years ago I read a novel, I can't remember the exact title but the Author was Cherri something. It was about the Loup Garou in New Orleans and had a whole speculative history thing dating from Roman times down to Revolution France then the Americas. Was fun to read. I think it was called "The Werewolf's Kiss" but I'm not entirely sure. Had a bodice-ripper kind of cover.
As a not so related aside, Sting's "Moon over Bourbon Street" always makes me imagine a Loup Garou singing that song.
Anita Harris.
Terra Mythogene
www.mythopoetica.com
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/4/03 4:01 pm)
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Re: Le Loup Garou
Yes.... how very appropriate!
Here are the lyrics for anyone who's interested!
There's a moon over Bourbon Street tonight
I see faces as they pass beneath the pale lamplight
I've no choice but to follow that call
The bright lights, the people, and the moon and all
I pray everyday to be strong
For I know what I do must be wrong
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
It was many years ago that I became what I am
I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb
Now I can only show my face at noon
And you'll only see me walking by the light of the moon
The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast
I've the face of a sinner but the hands of a priest
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
She walks everyday through the streets of New Orleans
She's innocent and young from a family of means
I have stood many times outside her window at night
To struggle with my instinct in the pale moon light
How could I be this way when I pray to God above
I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love
Oh you'll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there's a moon over Bourbon Street
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tlchang37
Registered User
(11/5/03 12:06 pm)
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Re: Le Loup Garou
I'd never associated "Bourbon Street" with werewolves, but that fits very nicely. I always pictured some Ann Rice-ish vampire type. (So many of her books touch on New Orleans).
Anybody know what Sting *was* alluding to?
Tara
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Blackwolf
Unregistered User
(11/5/03 1:05 pm)
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Found this
www.locusmag.com/index/s712.html
Sting/Gordon Sumner.
"Moon over Bourbon Street" included in a vampire anthology.
Blackwolf
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AlisonPegg
Registered User
(11/5/03 1:14 pm)
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Can't have been thinking of the one in the zoo!!!
In John James Audubon Zoo in New Orleans there is a model of a huge massive Loup Garou coming out of the swamp. He's black and has glowing red eyes and is at least three times human height. Anyway I don't think Sting was referring to this one!
Alison
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AliceB
Registered User
(11/5/03 7:09 pm)
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My favorite werewolf song...
is WEREWOLVES OF LONDON, by Warren Zevon.
I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand
Walking through the rain
He was looking for the place called Lee Ho Fook's
Going to get himself a dish of beef chow mein...
Sorry about this tangent. I couldn't resist.
Alice
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Niniane
Sunyata
Registered User
(11/5/03 10:25 pm)
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Re: Found this
Cool. I had wondered what Sting had been referring to although I had imagined a singing Loup Garou. (Oops, accidental rhymage!) I thought it would probably turn out to be either a sex fiend or a vampire.
Anita Harris.
Terra Mythogene
www.mythopoetica.com
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lmallozzi
Registered User
(11/8/03 8:51 pm)
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Moon over Bourbon Street
I am quite sure that Sting was referencing "The Vampire Lestat" in his song. Actually, Sting was the original choice to play Lestat in "Interview with the Vampire", but the movie took so long to get into production that he was too old for the part when they actually got around to filming it.
Coming back to the Loup Garou, I read an interesting murder mystery set in New Orleans that featured a serial killer that referenced the Loup Garou legend - it was the first time I had come across that particular legend and it was quite fascintating to me. I can't remember the name of the book or who wrote it, alas.
Luciana
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Nalo
Registered User
(11/23/03 2:11 am)
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Re: Le Loup Garou
At the end of the original recording by Sting, there's the sound of a wolf howling. So it seems that he was making a deliberate reference to werewolves.
Might I caution people to think twice before posting the full text of any artist's work to this public forum? That is copyrighted material, and besides being unfair to the artist, you put yourself at risk for a lawsuit for republishing the work without the artist's permission, even if you're able to find the full work published elsewhere (e.g. on another website).
-nalo
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Nalo
Registered User
(11/23/03 2:24 am)
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Re: Moon over Bourbon Street
Yes! I'd forgotten that "Moon Over Bourbon Street" had something to do with _Interview with the Vampire._ I never knew quite what, though. Thanks for filling us in.
-nalo
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