Creature record / 1747
Primarette, Dauphiné. Tuesday 23 May 1747. Whit Tuesday. During Vespers, a predatory wolf seized the son of François Malarin at the door of his house. Michel was seven years and one month old. His mother, Fleurice Petit, was there. She could not tear the boy from its teeth. Neighbours returning from church followed the blood trail into the woods. What they found there, they buried the same day. Over the next five years, the parish register of Curé Favre recorded more children taken. The curé suspected lynxes. The common folk insisted they were werewolves.
Primarette is a small commune in north-western Isère, near Beaurepaire, in the old province of Dauphiné. In the 1740s its curé, recorded simply as Favre, kept the parish register. Between 1747 and 1752, his burial entries told the story of children taken by a beast.