Two Medieval French Legends of Monsters

Some monsters enjoy enduring fame down through the ages. The Gorgon, the Minotaur, the Gryphon and numerous dragons still fascinate artists, storytellers & film makers today, but The Shaggy Beast
Of La Ferte-Bernard is sadly neglected. Roaming about the river Huisne in medieval France, the beast also known as "La Velue" (the hairy one) was large as an ox, covered in green fur and had a deadly serpentine tail. Its body was armed with venomous spikes & from its reptilian mouth flames would shoot forth to burn the crops in the fields. Sometimes, rolling about in the river it caused the land to flood. 
 

 In common with most monsters, La Velue had a taste for fair maidens; it never tired of eating them and the people seemed powerless to stop it. Eventually, a local lad who had lost his girl to the beast understood the way to destroy it. He approached it bravely and with sword in hand, he sliced off its tail, the one vulnerable part of its body. The shaggy creature died instantly and all the people, greatly relieved,held a big celebration feast with music.

 The Tarasque was a monster that terrorised the people of Provence, devastating the countryside.
It had a lions head, a big bull like body covered by a turtle shell and a scaly scorpion tail.
The local king had attacked the Tarasque with various weapons. Knights had ventured out to slay it 

 but without success. St Martha charmed the beast with her prayers and thus tamed, she led it, now docile to the nearest city. The people there were terrified of the monster and when it showed no resistance they fell on it and killed it. St Martha preached to the citizens who were then sorry for killing the beast and so renamed their city Tarascon in its memory.
The story of St Martha is told in " The Golden Legend" by Jacobus de Voragine. It was popular in the Middle Ages- filled with amazing miracles and grisly deaths, an antecedent of our contemporary desire for fantasy culture.
The painting of the saint taming the monster by Charles Lepel.
The illustration of the shaggy beast by Nicholas Kinney.

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