Cajun Werewolf

Intro Rougarou: The Swamp Werewolf Parents raising families in the swamplands of Louisiana don’t scare their children with stories or Dracula or the Boogeyman. Instead, they spin tales of the rougarou, a once-human, wolf-like, shapeshifting beast who walks on two legs. It looms over us, somewhere between seven and eight feet tall (depending on whose tale it is), and it eats little children out past their curfew. Children’s fairytale or not, adults scattered around the parish claim that they’ve seen the rougarou creeping through the brush in the dark, too. But do you know its villain origin story? South Louisiana’s culture is heavily influenced by France, and the cultural legend of the rougarou is no different... maybe. When the Acadians were exiled from France, they brought the legend of the loup-garou (pronounced loo-garoo) to Nova Scotia and, later on, Louisiana. The Cajun version of the tale was formed in our very own bayous and swamplands, eventually coming to be known as the rougarou.