Jean Grenier was a boy of
thirteen, partially idiotic, and of strongly marked canine
physiognomy; his jaws were large and projected forward, and
his canine teeth were unnaturally long, so as to protrude
beyond the lower lip. He believed himself to be a werewolf.
One evening, meeting half a dozen young girls, he scared them
out of their wits by telling them that as soon as the sun had
set he would turn into a wolf and eat them for supper. A few
days later, one little girl, having gone out at nightfall to
look after the sheep, was attacked by some creature which in
her terror she mistook for a wolf, but which afterwards proved
to be none other than Jean Grenier. She beat him off with her
sheep-staff, and fled home. As several children had
mysteriously disappeared from the neighbourhood, Grenier was
at once suspected. Being brought before the parliament of
Bordeaux, he stated that two years ago he had met the Devil
one night in the woods and had signed a compact with him and
received from him a wolf-skin. Since then he had roamed about
as a wolf after dark, resuming his human shape by daylight. He
had killed and eaten several children whom he had found alone
in the fields, and on one occasion he had entered a house
while the family were out and taken the baby from its cradle.
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