There’s one thing that occurs to you once you’ve spent sufficient evenings on the bayou. The cypress knees solid lengthy shadows throughout the bayou because the solar units, and that’s when the outdated tales begin to floor in your thoughts – none greater than the legend of the Rougarou.
Rising up fishing and searching in Southeast LA, I realized concerning the Rougarou on the similar time I realized learn how to bait a hook. It was initially known as the “loup-garou,” which implies werewolf, however over time, the title morphed into what it’s identified in the present day because the Rougarou.
The unique French legend served sensible functions. Catholic communities would warn that breaking Lenten obligations for seven consecutive years would remodel an individual right into a loup-garou. Mother and father discovered the creature significantly helpful for encouraging correct conduct in youngsters—very similar to how my father would level to rustling cypress branches on frogging journeys and whisper, “Hear that? That’s the Rougarou coming for you.”
Bodily Description and Alleged Habits
The creature is claimed to face impressively tall, with most accounts placing it at seven-plus toes. Tales from the Atchafalaya Basin describe it as a shadowlike creature with a disproportionately small head.
The Rougarou’s coat runs darkish – sometimes black as fresh-poured espresso or generally a deep rusty colour like oxidized marsh mud. Its eyes maintain a specific terror – glowing yellow or blood pink within the darkness, reflecting again your boat gentle from unimaginable distances throughout the water.
Habitat
If you happen to’re seeking to encounter the Rougarou (although I can’t suggest searching for one out), you’ll must enterprise into Louisiana’s extra remoted swamps. I’d advise having a look at Google Earth to map out sections of the swamp which might be secluded with no roads or homes close by. The creature appears most at house within the deeper reaches of our swamplands, significantly the place historic cypress timber create these eerie cathedral-like areas.
Probably the most constant sightings come from Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, particularly within the distant sections of Mandalay Nationwide Wildlife Refuge, the place the channels slim and the Spanish moss hangs so thick it will possibly block your operating lights.
Honey Island Swamp alongside the Mississippi-Louisiana border carries maybe probably the most well-known affiliation with the beast. Because the Sixties, hunters working the japanese edges of the swamp have reported encounters that they describe as unusual eyes reflecting again from unimaginable heights within the timber.
Looking the Rougarou
Having spent sufficient pre-dawn hours in duck blinds when one thing unexplainable moved via distant palmetto bushes, I’ve given this query severe consideration.
When searching the Rougarou, you want a dependable handgun with substantial stopping energy – one thing like a .44 Magnum revolver or a 10mm auto-loader. The creature’s reported velocity and dimension demand speedy incapacitation.
My Cousin Jimmy, who claims a detailed encounter close to Laffitte Swamp again in ’88, swears by his stainless Ruger Redhawk loaded with heavy hole factors. However keep in mind, this isn’t like deer searching. It’s extra corresponding to searching a velociraptor.
How Would I Put together It?
One lesson that has been handed down for hundreds of years in Louisiana is the outdated saying, “If you happen to kill it, you eat it.” And this goes for Rougarou as nicely. The few sightings which have been recorded recommend that the meat could be darkish, with a purple tinge and an uncommon metallic undertone – not not like the style that lingers once you’ve minimize your lip.
Preparation entails a three-day brining in closely salted water adopted by a sluggish simmer with triple the standard cayenne pepper – the warmth supposedly essential to “burn out the curse.”
So, whereas I might theoretically let you know a couple of black iron pot preparation with andouille, trinity, and filé powder, my suggestion is to let the Rougarou preserve to the deep swamp, and preserve to extra conventional proteins.
Latest Sightings
Probably the most compelling Rougarou encounter I’ve heard lately got here from a crabber who runs traps in Barataria Bay.
He had been operating his traps at nightfall. The fog rolled in thick. He was pulling his remaining entice when he seen one thing unnatural concerning the shoreline silhouette. “At first I assumed it was only a large bull gator,” he mentioned. “However gators don’t stand upright on their again legs. And so they positive don’t have eyes that catch your Q-beam like two burning cigarettes.”
The creature reportedly watched him for practically twenty minutes, monitoring alongside the shoreline because the fisherman struggled along with his outboard motor. Then it howled. the crabber mentioned “it was like somebody making an attempt to yell underwater.” The petrified man deserted his remaining entice and didn’t return till broad daylight the next morning.
Fable or Monster?
I’ve spent extra mornings than I can rely watching the mist rise off the bayou. In all these years, I’ve by no means laid eyes on the Rougarou.
The rational a part of me has to conclude that the Rougarou doubtless exists extra in our collective creativeness than within the bodily world. Like the proper fishing gap, it appears to look in tales extra typically than in documented actuality.
So, whereas I can’t in good conscience let you know the Rougarou prowls the swampland, I additionally gained’t be the one to enterprise alone into sure distant stretches after sundown. Some issues don’t should be examined.
