Jean Grenier, Werewolf of France

In seventeenth-century France, Jean Grenier, a boy of about fourteen years of age (Ashley 239), proudly announced to his fellow villagers that he had hunted down and eaten many young girls. He also boasted to some girls "that he could transform himself into a wolf" (Sidky 229). Since several children had in fact been killed in the area, he was believed and brought to trial.

Grenier claimed to have shifted shape "by means of a magic ointment and a wolfskin cloak given to him by a 'black man' whom he called 'Maître de la Forêt.'" As a result of this startling proclamation, the judges deemed Grenier mentally ill, saying that he suffered from lycanthropy brought on by demon possession.

Grenier was shunted off to a monastery by the Parliament of Bordeaux where he spent the rest of his life (Cavendish 3010-3011).

No sooner was [Grenier] admitted into the precincts of the religious house, than he ran frantically about the cloister and gardens upon all fours, and finding a heap of bloody raw offal, fell upon it and devoured it in an incredibly short space of time.... Delancre visited him some seven years after, and found him diminutive in stature, very shy, and unwilling to look anyone in the face. His eyes were deep set and restless; his teeth long and protruding; his nails black, and in places worn away; his mind was completely barren; he seemed unable to comprehend the smallest things (Sidky 241).

These symptoms are reminiscent of autism.

Lost?

Jean Grenier, Werewolf of France copyrighted 1996-1998 to Shantell Powell.