The Rougarou (my fave piece of folklore and why I love it so much)

   I genuinely love folklore; it's one of my passions. Folklore and especially when that folklore has elements of horror in it, is what I love because of how it ties in with the history it was conceived during as well as what fears it talks about and reflects. It could also be said that a lot of horror is created as a reaction to real-world events and reflects the fears of those who create it or the fears of those that consume it. That's why I love horror so much, because it has so much beauty in its art, and also what it has to say about humanity and society.

  Folklore is different but I love it for similar reasons. I love folklore because of what it can say about the places it was conceived in as well as how it archives the history of a place in a way that isn't like a documentary or a textbook because its perspective isn't limited to an outsider looking in. In a way, folklore is like getting to see that history directly from a first-person perspective like it's a memory. I could go on and on about why I love mythology and folklore so much, but I wanted to talk about one of my favorite pieces of folklore.

  I remember being like 5-6 years old and being told about the Rougarou when I used to live out in the more rural areas of my old hometown. The gist of the legend is, is that the Rougarou is a werewolf that lives in the bayou and the cane field and eats children who get lost. The core legend does change depending on who you hear it from but that's the gist of it. The core legend also talks about the Rougarou being cursed. The curse is that those who manage to escape the cane fields/bayou with their lives must keep their account of witnessing the Rougarou secret for a year and one day. If they fail to keep the secret, then they will become the next Rougarou.

  There wasn't much info that I could find on the Rougarou that was fully consistent which I found both neat and slightly irritating when it comes to trying to make a consistent version of the legend that could be called the concrete version. But as I thought more into it, I came to appreciate that the Rougarou legend didn't have one concrete version, it had a gist that was consistent but every person who heard about the Rougarou or grew up with the story has a slightly different version. Its oddly beautiful to me that despite the Rougarou being different to every person, every person is connected through the idea of the Rougarou. The idea of the Rougarou is the idea of fearing the unknown that lies in nature and how that nature no matter how familiar or common still can be terrifying with how deadly it can be.

  Bayous can be scary because of the animals that live in them as well as how their marshy waters could hide stuff like broken glass from beer bottles, animal bones, dead fish, or even corpses that will rot into food for plants and in their mouths, mushrooms and fungus will grow as their skin gets waterlogged. Bayous can be scary not just by what hides in them but also what they can do/become during natural disasters like hurricanes and how it affects those who live nearby them or on their banks. 

  Cane fields can also be scary because of how they are so vast and what could happen if you do get stuck in them. The horror lies in the hypothetical situations of what would happen if you got stuck in the cane field and get confronted by a coyote or some type of predatory animal or by someone. There's also horror of never finding your way out and being left for dead unless you are found on the side of the road by a passing car that would brush you off as some type of junkie to ignore or some drunk person who just came back from a party. If you manage to get out the cane field, then you still are left lost on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and now have no way to get back home. The horror isn't limited to the feeling of being lost alone. At the end of cane harvest season, the cane fields are burned in "cane fires", when you use that in a horror sense then it has the potential to explore the thought of "why do we have to burn those cane fields," "what danger could live in them that warrants a vast field being burned.".

  As someone who lives in the south, cane fields and bayous are places that I consider pretty common areas you pass by on a long drive. I have memories of when I used to live in the more rural areas and hearing stories of people getting drunk or having rager parties in the cane fields during the 70's-90's. Now as I still live in the south only in a less rural area, not in the city and not in the country, I notice how cane fields and bayous are sparse. It gave me the space to think more about those once common places in a more literary and creative way. And when I thought of the bayous and cane fields in a more horror-centric way it gave me more of an understanding of the Rougarou.

  When I see horror surrounding cryptids or folklore, I notice how little of it give its cryptid a concrete setting. And especially with how sparce that folk horror is set in the south I notice that when people talk about the south they usually focus on a few places. In the case of the Rougarou, when people from outside of the south talk about it, I notice that they usually brush it off as a "bayou werewolf" when the Rougarou is more than just a werewolf myth. This can extend beyond just horror surrounding folklore or cryptids but also extends to discussions surrounding horror as a whole and how the settings of that horror can contribute to their themes (which is a whole other essay I could write about).

  The Rougarou derives its horror from the fear of the unknown like most folklore, but there is another horror to it that makes it distinct to the south. That southern horror is the fear of nature, the Rougarou's habitats of the cane field and the bayou accentuate that point. In the south, especially in Louisiana, the weather and Nature often hold hands when it comes to unpredictability. Hurricane season is a terrifying time and while it occurs yearly and aren't a new thing it still causes a unanimous spike in fear because of how hurricanes affect people and the devastation they can reign. You can never be sure whether this year will be just another small hurricane that will be a passing name on a list of past hurricanes or if it will achieve the same infamy and generational effecting tragedy that Hurricane Katrina or Ida or those alike have etched into the memories of its victims (both dead and living). 

  Nature has true neutrality. It has no will to bring violence or peace intentionally, but it isn't unguided, it reacts proactively, but never acts first, it isn't good or bad, only that can be decided by your perception, it's never truly at peace and it is never fully at rest. That is the horror of nature, it is the horror of true unpredictability and the fear that when you trespass and take it for granted what those consequences entail. It is the horror of what price you must pay, that is if it even cares about being appeased. Nature is a scary thing, even while you see it everywhere it still has mystery to it, and that constant unknown to something that is so common is terrifying. 

  The Rougarou is my favorite piece of folklore not just because I find it interesting but also because it's almost therapeutic. When I think of the Rougarou, it reminds me of the horror that living in the rural deep south has, its curse brings up a lot of the secrecy that small towns have and how that secrecy can breed isolation. The horror from the unknown, isolation, nature, secrecy, and how those fears the legend reflects blend together, it blends together to create a sense of solace. That solace I find in it comes from how my fears were represented in the Rougarou, my fears weren't isolate, they were the fears of those before me and while my fears are not theirs, we are united in the common horror we share in our experience. That experience is the horror and the Rougarou reflects that experience, in a way, I find the Rougarou therapeutic in that regard.

  Thanks for reading this really long ramble about why I love the Rougarou so much, I might write another entry about my interpretation of the Rougarou. I had an idea surrounding it so I wrote a small story (kinda?). I might post that or not, I'm undecided 

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  What's your favorite folklore? I wanna learn more about folklore that you guys might know about that isn't in the mainstream with cryptids like Mothman. 

  Anyways I hope you guys are doing good, Thanks for reading.