Free The Complete Idiot's Guide to Werewolves by Brown Robert Page B

winter).
     
    The local church authorities, it seemed, were completely dumbfounded as to what they should do. If Theiss was lying, of course, then it would be no harm, no foul on their part. However, if Theiss was telling the truth … by executing him, they would be personally responsible for unleashing hell on Earth (not to mention killing a divine servant of heaven). Apparently, this wasn’t a risk they were willing to take. Rather than execute Theiss for openly confessing to lycanthropy (which, according to church law, was a capital offense), they sentenced him to receive 10 lashes. For a charge of lycanthropy, this was a very lenient punishment for the time period.

Antoine Leger
    In June of 1823, a 29-year-old Frenchman by the name of Antoine Leger decided to separate himself from the world. Leger had once been a soldier, after which he had worked briefly in a vineyard as a vine-dresser. He journeyed into the woods to assume a life as a hermit and even took up residence in a natural cave. His choice may have been influenced by the common occurrence of famines in France (the country had already been experiencing frequent and extreme famines for nearly 1,000 years), and Leger may have thought that he could live off the land by foraging and hunting. There are some who now firmly believe that Leger may have been exhibiting symptoms of a delusional mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, and that this is what led him to take up a life in the woods.
     
    By the year 1824, however, something went terribly awry with Antoine Leger’s new lifestyle. Some believe he went stark raving mad as a result of his long solitude. Others theorize that hunting and foraging ceased to offer a plentiful-enough bounty to sustain him. Whatever the case, it is safe to say that something in the mind of Antoine Leger had altogether snapped.
     
    Leger somehow snatched a little girl who had wandered near the edge of the woods from a nearby village and dragged her to his cave. Once there, he killed the child, drank her blood, and ate some of her flesh. Some believe he tore her body apart using only his teeth and bare hands, while others say he used a blade or some other edged weapon. The records are sketchy on the details. When the girl did not return home, a search party combed the woods and happened upon Leger’s cave. At the ghastly sight of the girl’s mutilated corpse, the mob immediately fell upon Leger and handed him over to the Versailles magistrates.
     
    Leger was tried for the girl’s murder. In the magistrate’s investigation, it was discovered that Leger had eaten of his victim’s flesh. Leger admitted that he’d long supped on the raw flesh of rabbits, but that he had become consumed by an urge to taste human flesh. He also openly admitted to every gruesome detail of his crime. He was sentenced to death for crimes associated to lycanthropy (which was still considered an actual crime in France at the time).
     
    After his execution, Leger’s corpse was handed over for scientific examination. His head and brain were thoroughly examined, and the acting physicians discovered that he had in fact suffered from an unidentified brain disorder that had caused extreme deterioration of his neural tissue. This is significant because it marked the first occurrence in a werewolf trial where the beliefs offered by traditional superstitions were challenged by new advances in the arenas of science and medicine.
    Bark vs. Bite
    In all actuality, Leger likely exhibited symptoms of what is now referred to as “clinical lycanthropy.” A century and a half later, in 1975, there would be another case strikingly similar to Leger’s. In that case, the affected man was also suffering from an unidentified condition of brain deterioration, simply labeled “walnut brain.” For more information on this case and clinical lycanthropy, see Chapter 18.
    The Least You Need to Know
    • History is full of documents that record the trials of alleged