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Hey everybody.
Welcome back to another episode of Cryptid Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few
drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown.
I'm your host Dave, and I almost forgot to unmute my microphone.
And I am joined today by Mr. Cryptid Clyde.
What's going on, man?
Hey, how you doing?
Doing all right.
Cryptid is your first name, right?
So it's Mr. Clyde.
Yeah, my dad is Mr. Clyde.
It's just the Cryptid Clyde.
Gotcha.
Oh, but how you doing, man?
I'm so glad that you were able to hop on this.
I'm very excited.
Hey, yeah, I'm good.
Apart from the voluntary audio difficulties we had, I'm doing great now.
Yeah, we found a workaround.
And you know, through the magic of AI, I can make you sound like you're in the room with
me, maybe.
We'll figure it out.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
But you're doing good.
I haven't spoken to you in person since Squawkapalooza, which was the first and only time I've ever
spoken to you in person.
But I had a great time there.
And I'm very glad that you were my booth neighbor, I guess.
Yeah, same.
What was the there was somebody playing music or something, right?
There was.
Oh, yeah.
It was the balloon artist right next to you, right?
No, it was it was the the anime artist that was across from us.
And they were blasting Wu-Tang Clan and not like the family friendly.
Not that there is many, but like this is this is a kid friendly event.
So anyone who wasn't Squawkapalooza, this was like a family friendly.
It was like a really in a park in a small town and it was like really nice.
And then these dudes just set up these like a full on PA system and just start blasting
the most aggressively violent rap, which I'm fine with it.
But they're sure.
I mean, Wu-Tang is for the children.
So it's not.
I believe that's what I messaged you.
And I was like, good thing this is a family event because Wu-Tang is for the children.
If it was anywhere else, this would be highly inappropriate.
Absolutely.
Every Chuck E. Cheese birthday has Wu-Tang playing.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I used to work at Chuck E. Cheese, so I can confirm that that is the case.
The animatronic.
Yeah, they actually switched out the animatronic band that used to play at Chuck E. Cheese.
And it's just animatronic Wu-Tang now.
It's just nine nine dudes just going full bars on these eight year olds.
The full what, like 36 chambers or whatever?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's fine.
Oh my God.
Oh, that was so aggressive.
I loved it though.
It was.
Yeah, it was great.
It was great.
Oh, well, yeah, man, I'm super glad that you were able to come.
I guess for anyone who I guess for people who don't know who you are, I guess, do you
want to do a shamelessly plug yourself for like a minute or two?
Sure.
I mean, I'm a dude who just likes to draw monsters and found that he used to do that
by having a shop as my side gig.
And yeah, that's kind of the more quiff notes of it.
I do graphic design for a day job, but this is a way to do something actually follow my
life.
So, yeah.
Yeah, I just I know it's weird that I know.
I know a lot of people who are graphic designers in their personal, like in their actual job.
And then they do graphic design for a side gig and they do the most horrific, horrible,
like monster horror artwork.
But I don't know if that came because they had a mundane, like nine to five job.
Like, I need to stop designing logos for like, yeah, Vineyard Vines.
I need to do something and they just get into this dark space.
Yeah.
It's a real chicken and the egg situation for sure.
All right.
So Clyde, you have no idea what we're going to talk about today, right?
No, I'm coming in blind.
All right.
And it's safe to say that I usually ask people, you're clearly a cryptids guy.
So you might actually know what we're talking about today.
As far as cryptids go, I know a little about a lot.
So we'll see how this goes.
All right.
No, that's fine.
So the original topic I had for this is what I titled the episode.
And the first like four paragraphs are about that.
And then I just went off the rails.
So this episode either A, won't make any sense, like chronologically.
Okay.
But in researching the topic that we're about to discuss, I found that it went way further
back than I thought it did.
And like the roots of the lore in the story.
So I had to kind of like, I had kind of like scrap my idea halfway through and then just
shoehorn in the backstory.
But I think I think I made it work.
Okay.
Now, Clyde, second question.
You've been in New Orleans?
As much as I would love to go, I have never been though.
All right.
Well, I'm going to give you some backstory on New Orleans.
All right.
So New Orleans is easily one of the most famous cities in the United States.
I can't really find it hard to argue that.
Most people know what New Orleans is.
It's the home of some of the most famous people on the planet, like Lil Wayne's from New Orleans,
Louis Armstrong and noted asshole possible white supremacist and front man of the band
Pantera, Phil Anselmo is also from there.
Oh, yeah.
Wow.
Just a wide array of people.
It's a popular tourist destination thanks to its insanely good music scene.
And that goes for virtually any genre you can think of blues, bluegrass, jazz, punk,
metal, all of it.
Most everything that comes out of there is pretty much gold.
It's also known for its Creole and Cajun cuisine.
Oh my God.
It's best known for its Creole and Cajun cuisine.
And every year the city holds one of the wildest and longest parties Mardi Gras, where the
whole city goes all out basically for like two weeks, if not longer parades, shows, booze.
People just whipping out their titties in return for like two cent bead necklaces.
Again, just an all around good time for the family to enjoy.
So that's I guess it's pretty much New Orleans in a nutshell.
There's probably way more to it.
No, no, that's all we had.
Yeah.
I mean, when most people think about New Orleans, I feel like Mardi Gras like the first thing
they think of.
Oh, 100 percent.
Yeah, I would assume.
Now, if you're like me and you like the more macabre things about a city or a place, New
Orleans isn't just all tits and glamour.
All right.
So the city, the city does have a darker history to it.
Like for example, from May 1918 to October 1919, New Orleans was home to an unknown and
never caught axe murderer dubbed the Axeman of New Orleans.
Who is a side.
Oh, yeah, so who in the span of that year killed six people, injured six more and then
famously ended by writing like a letter to the police or something like that, saying
that if everyone in the city blares jazz music at this time on a specific date, I'll just
pass through your city, which he did.
Apparently like a bunch of like pretty much everyone was just blaring jazz, which is kind
of fucked up that they just kind of bowed to the whim of the serial killer.
But I think I would probably do the same toe.
But in true New Orleans fashion, it was a party that solved everything.
So yeah, that's very accurate.
And they're probably going to do that anyways.
Like, oh, let's see.
It was also home to Jean and Pierre Lafetite, who were famous pirates of the time.
And Jean gaining a little more fame due to his role on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
When you when you launch off from that ride, it's from I think it's the East's landing
or something like that.
Let's see.
Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated JFK also hails from New Orleans and supposedly
assassinated JFK.
Oh, sorry.
Possible president murder Lee Harvey Oswald may or may not be from New Orleans.
Excellent.
Yeah.
But undoubtedly the most like horrible person to ever come out of New Orleans is Madame
Delphine LaLaurie, who was a very rich New Orleans socialite who tortured, mutilated
and murdered at the very least 12 slaves in the attic of her mansion on Royal Street.
It's believed that number is much higher and her crimes are only discovered because one
of her enslaved servants, the cook, I think, just set the house on fire and she was like,
fuck this.
I've done with this.
And so they set the house on fire so that people would come in and like find the crimes.
Last podcast on the left just did like a really good two part series on it.
So if you want to learn more about that, definitely go check that out.
Now, Clyde, hear me out.
All right.
Yes, yes, yes.
I know all this New Orleans history is fun and all.
And I didn't even get into like the history of like voodoo or witchcraft in the area or
like the billions of ghost stories and hauntings the city says because there's a shit ton of
those because some.
Or the cage tombstone.
Didn't get into any of that.
Actually, Nick Cage.
Fun fact.
I believe Nick Cage either did or still does own the Lollaree Mansion.
Yes, I think I think he sold all of this fun tax stuff.
So yeah, but at one point he owned that and he owned like the church with the graveyard
in it.
Right.
Yeah.
So anyways, something much darker lurks in the swamps around New Orleans, and it's a
creature with the body of a man, the head of a wolf and a heart that's just brimming
with Catholic rage.
And that creature is known as the Rougarou.
Are you familiar with the Rougarou?
I know of it.
And apart from being mentioned on a few podcasts, it did also because of the movie Wolf Cop.
So yeah, I know about the.
Oh, God, Wolf Cop, man.
I forgot about that movie.
Tragedy.
All right.
So said to stalk the swamps around New Orleans and a katiana, I don't know how to pronounce
this.
I'm just going to say that's what it is as well as sugar cane fields and woodlands of
the surrounding areas.
The Rougarou is essentially a werewolf.
It's a cursed man who at night during the full moon is transformed into a towering monster
with the body of a human, albeit covered in fur, just yoked as all hell.
Long and sharp teeth and cloths.
Oh, my God.
Teeth and claws.
I'm having a mild stroke right now.
And the head of the wolf, it said that when the Rougarou is in its wolf like form, it
always retains its full human intelligence, memory and sense of self, which is kind of
an upsell if you ask me.
I don't see any downsides to that because you could be pretty much a superhero.
100 percent.
I mean, in the argument of the Empire werewolf, I'm always the werewolf crew.
So Abby, all of your senses and abilities.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
I'm in a heartbeat.
Now, tales of the Rougarou have been around for centuries in French folklore, starting
with stories of the Lougarou.
And this is where my script just kind of stops talking about the Rougarou altogether.
I found out that the Rougarou is just the Lougarou, but since it's in Creole, they just
made it a different sound.
But Lougarou just means werewolf.
So this episode is basically about werewolf.
So we're going to have fun with that.
Excellent.
This is dating all the way back to at least the 16th century.
So not only were, you know, there are endless wars, hunger, disease, famine, droughts and
dragons are all part of your daily worries.
Now you also got werewolves to deal with in the 16th century, which is just sounds awful.
Just piling on, right?
Yeah.
I mean, and during this time, a lot of people would just blame the Lougarou for a number
of different things back then.
So like something murdered all your livestock, the Lougarou did it.
Your kid get killed, Lougarou.
Your wife leave you for the blacksmith.
That was the Lougarou.
Lougarou.
And just like in Salem during like the witch trials, if you were just like a general, generally
like weird and off putting dude, there's a good chance that you're just going to be accused
of and tried and probably convicted under the suspicion of being a werewolf.
So yeah, it's just all good.
Now for the most part, the Lougarou is used more as like a cautionary tale for children,
like all good folklore is and should be used for.
You got to really traumatize them young so that way it sticks with them, you know?
Very Ray Riding Hood, a big bad wolf kind of thing.
Yeah.
It's like if you don't clean your room, the Lougarou is going to fucking kill you.
That kind of thing.
That is until 1764 when a quote unquote real life Lougarou dubbed the Beast of Gévaudan
terrorized the French countryside for about three full years, starting with the brutal
killing of a 14 year old farm girl named Jean Boulet.
I'm just making up how to say these names in French, but they sound fine.
And that happened near the Allier River in June of that first year.
It then continued its rampage, injuring and dismembering and even decapitating several
people.
News of the beast spread across France.
People were rightfully terrified with the news eventually reaching the ear of King Louis
the 15th, who ended up sending his own hunters and even his personal bodyguard, Francois
Antoine to track and kill the beast.
And on September 21st, 1765, Francois and his men killed a large wolf that they assumed
was the beast responsible.
So good for them.
But I do believe that it's just like we got the wolf guys.
So yeah, so probably one.
So with a job well done from the king, him and his men dusted themselves off, collected
their reward and just got the fuck out of there.
But then the attack started back up again and continued for two years.
But since the king had already told everyone that the beast responsible was dead and he
didn't want to look like a fucking asshole, he just ignored it.
He just ignored them this time in newspapers of the day.
The authorities, they all did the same.
So over the course of those like three years, the beast of Jeboudin killed at least 100
people with some sources claiming the total number killed could be as high as 300, which
is fucking bonkers.
Like if you think about everything else happening at this time to be 300 people just killed
by a werewolf, like that's wild.
It's absolutely insane, especially even if we're going to go like the logical route of
the being just a wild animal.
Like that body counts huge.
It's really high.
It's like not OK.
It was just so just like an all around bad time for everyone involved.
But luckily for the people of Jeboudin, a local hunter named Jean Chastel put an end to the
attacks when he shot and killed a large animal on June 19th, 1767 that witnesses described
as a wolf, but like a super weird looking one.
It had a massive head and his fur was red, white and gray, which no one had ever seen
before.
And to this day, no one really knows what it was.
There are theories that like it was an escaped like juvenile male wolf.
So like it had like a had a mane, but not like a full wolf.
Sorry, lion.
So like it had.
Oh, yeah.
Had a mane, but not like a full lion's mane.
It's like the halfway transition, like teenage Simba from The Lion King.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, Simba.
Yeah, totally.
That's just, you know, hot.
Oh, yeah.
The hottest.
I've also heard a high either was sort of out there a couple of times, too.
I heard hyena as well that which this fur color actually kind of more tracks, I guess,
to being a hyena.
But like, what the fuck's a hyena doing in France?
Like, oh, yeah.
I heard these answers give any logic to it.
No, that doesn't make sense.
But I mean, it also makes no sense that there's a full on werewolf.
So you know, really, really any explanation at this point, I'll take it.
But you're probably wondering how did the Lugru, this French werewolf folklore end up
becoming the Rugeru, which is now a staple in New Orleans folklore?
Maybe not, but I'm going to assume you are.
So I'm going to keep going.
Well, that's good.
It's it's pretty simple.
They're one in the same.
Like I said at the top, when the French settled to Louisiana, as well as the French Canadian
immigrants who came centuries ago, they brought this folklore with them and the legends as
well.
And then the Canadian, the French Canadian ended up more assimilating with like the Native
Americans and the indigenous peoples of Canada in the area.
And then they kind of just melded all their shit together because Native Americans and
First Nations people also had like wolf man.
Sure.
Yeah.
So that's how they kind of just they just melded America, truly a melting pot of cultures.
You know what I mean?
Well, yeah, I was going to say, actually, the whole thing is reminiscent of the Shunka
Warrickon, which is also another weird kind of wolf.
Sure.
But yeah, so yeah, it was it was more the Rugeru.
So the French came over and then they met with the Native Americans and indigenous peoples,
the First Nations in Canada.
And they're like, yo, you have a fucked up wolf.
We have a fucked up wolf.
Let's just kind of team up and we'll just kind of see how this plays out.
But then those people emigrated to New Orleans.
And what happened was the name Rugeru and Lugeru, like I said, are actually both used
in Louisiana.
It just depends on how you're feeling that day.
And in reality, the most likely reason is because Cajun dialect is a mixture of both
English and French and the Cajun and they're kind of just known to just completely change
the pronunciation of words just to have them kind of like roll off the tongue easier.
So Lou became Rue.
And that's kind of how that happens.
So you're probably thinking, well, how does one become a Rugeru?
If exactly whether whether you want to avoid it or make a transformation like a big life
decision.
Well, there's a couple of different ways.
One is kind of dumb.
The legend has it that only a witch can make a Rugeru either by turning into a wolf themselves
or by giving people the curse of lycanthropy, which is probably the lamest of all the legends.
I'm not even going to humor that one.
Another legend states that a Rugeru is only cursed for like one hundred and one days,
but they can transfer the curse to another human if they shed their blood.
Now, I heard two versions of this and neither of them make sense to me.
So the first one is, is that the Rugeru has to spill the blood of a victim, not kill the
person, just make them bleed.
And that person becomes a Rugeru.
And then the original one can go back to human form.
But then the other person is a Rugeru for one hundred and one days unless it does the
same thing or it doesn't tell anyone about them being a Rugeru or they or they don't
tell anyone about the encounter they had with the Rugeru.
So it's and then the other version is just it's that but reverse.
So the human makes the Rugeru bleed and then the original one becomes human again.
But now that person's a Rugeru.
I don't it's like a weird fucked up version of like it's like it's like the videotape
from the ring.
It's either you die in seven days or you make someone watch the videotape.
It's kind of like that.
It's like a werewolf chain letter, basically.
Yeah, it neither of them makes sense.
I don't understand.
Yeah, the other one day thing, that's a new one.
I don't hurt that part.
Now another way and this is probably my favorite way just because it's hilarious that you could
have a Rugeru.
This is according to French Catholics.
So if you break or don't recognize the tradition of Lent for seven years, you'll be transformed
into a Rugeru and then your only mission from then on out is to hunt down and kill other
Catholics who do not follow the rules.
So as a kid, it was raised Catholic and it's not practice Lent for over a decade.
I guess you don't want to do it every time, you know, I'd rather watch your back because
something's coming for you pretty soon.
It could either end really good or really bad for you, man.
I don't know.
I just I love my meat and during Lent, man, what can I say?
No fish, no lay fruit.
But what if like what if your thing for Lent is giving up Lent?
You know, or during up being a werewolf.
Yeah, there's no.
But Rugerus and Lugerus are werewolves.
I'm just gonna say werewolves from now on because Rugeru is just not rolling off the
tongue as much as I'd like it to.
They aren't all that bad.
According to legend, yes, they are mostly creatures of vengeance or at least that's
what I read.
But they're also beasts of protection and somewhat like a guardian angel.
They've been known to befriend and protect the downtrodden and those society has rejected
orphans, widows, the houseless.
That's only if you're pure of heart.
So if you're a shitty orphan, fuck off.
You got to look out for Krampus and you got to look out for the Lugeru.
Yeah, they're all coming for you.
But let's say you don't want anything to do with those things.
You just want to make sure that you never come face to face with a werewolf or a Rugeru
in this case.
There are a couple of different things you can do to kind of like stay off the radar.
I guess one would be to make sure at least once every seven years you just observe once.
The other one is classic silver.
Just keep a silver something on you and they'll kind of just leave you alone.
And then this one is kind of weird.
Out of your house, you want to leave 13 objects.
Now the reason for this is because they will for some reason instinctively try to count
those items.
Oh, the vampire with the rice stick.
Yeah, but apparently Rugerus can't count past 12.
So that's a fun wrinkle.
So what happens is they'll get to 12 and then they'll just fucking short circuit and get
really frustrated.
And they're just like, it's like a game of Monopoly.
They just flip the board and be like, fuck this game.
I'm out of here.
Just go back to whatever they're doing.
But this one doesn't make any sense.
And the reason why is because the legend says that you retain your sense of self and all
that stuff.
And is that the one caveat is that you are you as a human being in the head of a Rugeru.
You cannot do math.
Yeah.
Math is just not in the equation for you.
Literally.
Oh my god.
I had never learned that part.
That's incredible.
That's good, right?
Yeah.
Oh shit.
All right.
Well, there you go.
Whatever.
There you have it.
That is the legend of the Rugeru, aka the Lugeru, aka werewolves.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's I really I'm still getting over this.
There is so of all the weaknesses of any counting the 13 was not on the trade.
Yeah, I know.
When I when I saw that, I was like, you, you got to be fucking kidding me.
That doesn't make any sense.
But I'm here for it.
I love it.
Oh my god.
But do you do you think it's like 13 for like that weird like a like?
Superstition.
There's there's a whole lot of weird stuff around 13, like a lot of again, this is the
years of Catholicism I was born into.
But you know, trills of biblical number that pops up a lot like the 12 tribes of Israel
and the temples and everything.
So you know, the 13th has always had this weird religious subtext to it.
So if we're going with the witchcraft explanation, I think that kind of lines up this not so
much the counting cart, but the numbers it itself is a spooky number.
Plus maybe back in like the 16th century, counting to 13, you probably never had to
do that before.
You know, they weren't you a baker's dozen back then, man.
Yeah, a dozen was a hard dozen.
Anything past that is either two dozen or a half dozen.
It doesn't matter.
Oh my God, that's I.
Yeah, go on.
Well, I was going to say, I'm glad you enjoyed the story.
Thoughts?
Where are we at?
Do you still have love for werewolves?
And this, if anything, has made it better for me.
I don't know about you.
I mean, I've always been terrible at math.
So the whole like flipping the table at number 13, 100 percent.
I'm there.
It makes it really humanizes it.
It really does.
I could emphasize that a lot.
Yeah, no, I I love the werewolf legends in general, man.
It's just it's such a unique thing.
Like I feel like a lot of cryptos are either really, really like way out there, weird or
like very, very grounded.
Yeah.
Like, you know, Bigfoot just primate is unkind.
That's relatively mundane.
But like werewolves right in this middle part of like it's human, but it's not.
It's got all these legends from different peoples and whatnot.
It's interesting.
But also like like the Bigfoot, I feel like most cultures, no matter where you are, have
some sort of like hand therapy story in their like belief system and or just their like
history in general.
So, I mean, it's kind of like the Bigfoot in that sense.
Yeah, it is kind of a universal thing.
Yeah.
And it's it's also weird that it's primarily canines.
I think there's part of that is like, you know, us domesticating them so early on in
our humanity, you know, that that's a part of our culture in a way.
But you don't see too many other animals.
There are occasionally like I've heard like were hyenas and there's, you know, the bear
circus kind of thing from Viking legend, whatnot.
But it's most bugs.
Yeah.
Don't get too ahead of yourself.
I didn't put this in the story and I'm going to try and find it now.
But there are legends of there are legends of the Rougarou where it's not a wolf, but
it could be it could be a rabbit.
It could be a bear.
It could be a rabbit.
It's not it's not widely accepted, but that is that is one of the things is that it could
have the head of.
I just flash into light and I did a leap is basically man.
The giant rabbits wreak havoc.
Oh, oh, my God, a rabbit.
Yeah.
But it still has it still has the massively jacked human body.
Oh, that's just but just like a bunny head.
Oh, I don't I don't like that image.
It's not ideal.
No, because what's fucked up is that it still does all the same things that the werewolf
would do, but it's just a bunny now.
Oh, my God.
Just just picturing that bunny with a body count of three hundred.
That bunny's putting up numbers, man.
Tell you what.
And now the whole thing makes sense with Easter, man.
That just lined up to perfect.
Oh, my God.
I will just spit out my beer.
Oh, shit.
All right, that's it's about that time we're going to wrap things up.
I want to say, OK, thank you again so much for coming on.
We'll definitely do this again.
It's a goal.
We'll do 100 percent.
We'll do this again.
And hopefully next time the better audio version will work.
Let's hope.
But before we go, just tell people where they can find you, where they can buy your art
stickers, all that stuff, just so they know.
And I'll link it all in the episode description as well.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, I don't have many links.
I got Instagram.
It's just a cryptic dash Clyde on there.
My I'm sorry, not cryptic dash, cryptic underscore Clyde.
Cryptic dash Clyde dot shop is my website.
And that's actually it.
So yeah, hell yeah, man.
I appreciate you.
Make sure to follow us at Cryptic Cocktail Party on Instagram and Twitter.
Follow me on TikTok at Cryptic Cocktail Party.
I don't ever really use it, but it's fun to just find stock footage and then put voiceovers
over it.
But yeah, that's it for me.
You want to say bye to everyone?
Bye everyone.