This Frenchman Was Convicted of Being a Werewolf After Eating Children, Now Kids Sing About It

France has a fascinating history of werewolves terrorizing people.

It is a cold January evening, and a group of tired, dirty men is walking into Dole, France, from a neighboring town. Dole is just under 200 miles from the Swiss border for some geographic perspective, but back to our group of exhausted laborers. They’ve just finished a hard day’s work and are looking forward to a hot meal and sleep before they get up and do it all over again the following day. They plunge their hands in their pockets to keep warm while their breath creates an icy cloud around their heads as they exchange jokes and stories about their day.

One man points to the sky and says the moon is full, and the men quicken their pace. Anyone knows that werewolves could come out under that glistening moon, and even these men with their calloused hands and puffed up chests are afraid of the four-legged beast that lurks in the dark. Werewolves, they say to one another, could be afoot. But before they can entertain their fears, a low growl and a rustling nearby stops the men dead in their tracks, raising the hairs on the backs of their necks and stuttering their breaths to quick snaps of icy gasps.

In a vineyard that brushes the side of the long road, illuminated by the bright moon in the frozen air, the Werewolf of Dole is ripping into a small animal. The men become afraid but determined to…