Babaos: a fantastic reality behind a legend

 

Babaos! No doubt the mere mention of the name would have inspired the biggest fright in generations of children. But today, the monster is reduced to an annual tourist attraction in Rivesaltes. It no longer has the echo of a creature from the Otherworld, having crossed the borders – the door – of another dimension, come here to haunt our world. A door of Hell, kept by watchers, who, throughout the ages, took turn in the tower of the lords of Périllos.

The legends of Babaos and Babau

To our knowledge, there are at least two accounts of the legend of Babaos. Each comprises many similarities but also of significant differences. There is the version of the Babaos de Périllos, which, by convenience, we will name from now on the “Version of Périllos”. Another version of the legend has the favour of the Rivesaltais. To distinguish it from the “Version of Périllos”, we will label it the “Version of Rivesaltes”.

At first sight, but at first sight only, we are confronted with two accounts telling a rather similar history but also presenting, in their general structure and their details, far too many contradictory and irreconcilable points so that one can take conclude that the two versions are based on one another.
One describes a serpent-form and winged monster with human face, the other an amphibian creature resembling a prehistoric iguana… One evokes a long litany of dramas, the other of the devastations that extends over hardly more than one week… One talks about three days of a pitiless tracking in the mountains, ending in the mortal fall of the monster in a deep pit, the other speaks about a hunt until the creature, deadly wounded, will fall on the banks of the river Agly, downstream from Rivesaltes…

A very precise localisation in time and space

In spite of these divergences, the two accounts do coincide in a remarkable way on the dating, the localisation and the course of parts of the events.
The “Version of Périllos” specifies that Babaos made its appearance on the Eastern edge of the Corbières, a little after the departure of the lord of Périllos, for the eighth and last crusade. In March 1267, Louis IX will besiege Tunis before succumbing from the plague under its walls. The lord of Périllos might have joined the army of the King de France in the Camargue. Or, in ca. 1275, he may have joined Guillaume of Beaujeu, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and Guillaume de Roussillon, for the desperate defence of Saint Jean d'Acre. One can thus date Babaos to the time from 1267 to 1291 (the fall of Saint-Jean-in Acre by the Mamelukes).
The “Version of Rivesaltes” is even more precise, since the first attack of Babau is mentioned in the night from the second to the third of February 1290 – within the same period as the Version of Périllos! A too remarkable precision to be credible? One note needs to be highlighted: in 1290, the monarch reigning over the county of the Roussillon cannot be James II of Majorca, born in 1315… but his grandfather James I, a contemporary of his elder brother Pierre III of Aragon. In any event, to describe Rivesaltes as knowing a period of peace under their reigns is a tranquil illusion…
In our opinion, it is also necessary to take a third element of dating into account: the strange solitary encounter of king Pierre III of Aragon at the top of Mount Canigou in 1285, when he met an emerging dragon from the Black Pond. The lake was said to be the door towards a mysterious underground palace, occupied by demons…
The legend of Babaos is therefore defined in time, place and action. Over one period of a number of years, in a well located and delimited area, a monster indicated by the name of Babaos left its trace of blood and tears. And a hero, also identified, put an end to his terrible misdeeds: the lord of Périllos and Fraisse. In the “Version of Rivesaltes”, the hero is Galdric Trencavent, whose wife during the procession is known as Radegonda. She has the same name as a person who delivered the good town of Poitiers from its monster, and whose name is also an anagram of DRAGONE!

A crypto-zoological approach of Babaos

With two enormous predatory and contemporary monsters, although apparently very different, haunting the same region there is obviously an abundance of enigmatic creatures… Several assumptions are therefore possible. The simplest is that these are the result of fertile imagination… dragons do not exist, at least not more than meteorites did before the beginning of the 19th century. Some excess in “logical thinking” comes from Jean Abélanet, who argues that the head of a band of thieves that were hung in Rivesaltes were somehow changed into a mythical monster, resembling an iguana, the size of a whale.

To try, under these conditions, to draw up a reliable identikit picture starting from the description of so dissimilar depictions is a challenge. If a crypto-zoologist would dare to, one can admit that the same unknown creature was observed in contexts and quite specific mediums by witnesses who, under the influence of quite legitimate emotions, retained certain details and, involuntarily, forgot or changed others. The same creature can also be subject to metamorphosis: if a caterpillar is a butterfly in becoming, it does present a different aspect from its final form. It may also be that one is in the presence of a couple of creatures, presenting great physiological and/or behavioural differences; the animal world shows us many examples of this phenomenon.
Moreover, carefully studying the various documents, it would seem that one is in the presence of several similar creatures, evolving/moving, over long periods of time, in the Corbières, the Roussillon and Catalonia. Creatures that seem to be parents of other “monsters” that closely fit the descriptions from other areas of the world. One cannot thus evoke a single monster. One is vis-a-vis the representatives of a species (or several related species), attending the same biotope in the same area and having a similar behaviour, and that during several centuries. Even the sudden appearance of Babaos towards the end of 13th century can thus be logically explained. Although living within short distance from the human world, its usual world seldom interferes with ours. Moreover, its presence – or that of other creatures – is announced in the same area in other times. Thus, relating to Périllos, the monk Marius Cornellas Naquote, in a document from 1583, mentions a creature of this kind, identified as “one monstrous serpent [...] like a ‘Draco Volans' and one of the fairies of the place”.

The identikit picture of the monster

The two versions are unanimous: we are in the presence of a gigantic creature. In the “Version of Périllos”, the monster is described as a monstrous winged snake with a human face. One can thus, a priori, exclude any confusion, any erroneous interpretation starting from real observations, but more or less confused, of perfectly known animals.
The flying snake could have been the observation of the fall of a reptile climbing the trees. Several species from the Mediterranean Sea area can make acceptable candidates: Elaphe longissima (grass snake of Esculape) or Coluber viridiflavus (green and yellow grass snake). Others make more convincing flying reptiles, like Chrysopelea ornata (gilded snake of the trees) or Draco dussumuieri (a lizard whose bones form the mobile skeleton of the “wings”, deployed in the shape of large cutaneous lobes), but present the irremediable disadvantage to attend only South-East Asia for one and India for the other…
By its size, which can reach two meters (certain credible testimonies even consider 3 meters), the grass snake of Montpellier is very qualified to be Babaos… except that it does not have wings, nor a human face and does not have cattle and shepherdesses on its diet…
The three known hematophagous species of bat do not have anything reptilian, hardly present the profile of Homo Sapiens and, even if they can be of good size, are confined to South America. The common lizard or even certain varieties of large monitors hardly make them either of the very consistent suspects.
Unless we stumble upon Babaos’ remains, an identification with a known animal species is impossible: the bone which decorates the municipal office of tourism of Rivesaltes and which was piously preserved during many generations at the church of Saint André, measures 2.18 metres! In truth, like the bone at Prats-de-Mollo, it is a bone of a whale.
Discovering the remains of a whale on the beaches of the Roussillon is not exceptional. In 1828, a fin-back whale came to beach itself in Saint-Cyprien. The animal was similar in size to the remains of the whalebones of the Babau of Rivesaltes: an overall length of 25.60 metres and a circumference, at the level of the thorax, of 11.20 metres.

The Babau of Rivesaltes is described as being between 80 and 100 pams. The empan is an old traditional measuring unit, based on the width of the palm of a human hand, and varying from 22 to 24 cm. The creature observed by the Rivesaltais thus had a size between 17.60 and 24 metres!
By way of comparison, let us recall that the largest terrestrial mammal, the African elephant, is approximately 5 m long, between 2 and 3.5 m in height for an average weight of 4.5 tons. There is thus an idea of the colossal dimensions of Babau: a small herd of pachyderms to him all alone!
A Babau or Babaos of this size would be a monstrous zoological impossibility, not to say physiological! Provided with wings in proportion to such a body, Babaos should have had the scales of a B52… And to make such a mass take off, would have been quite impossible! And it is surely not by crunching cattle, kids and shepherdesses that it would have accumulated the calories necessary to the maintenance of such a body mass… except if he decimated the population of Roussillon… That would have, at least, left traces in the files and the local demography!
The amphibious model of the “Version of Rivesaltes” is hardly more credible: the draught which requires the watery evolutions of such a monster exceeds the dimensions of the river Agly. A creature of the size of a whale could not have passed through the doors of the city. A creature able to cut down a wall and to shake three houses to seize a half-dozen infants without being seen, is literary a pure fabrication.

Let us remember some intriguing details. The boiling of the waves is described when the monster goes up the Agly, water cascading from his sides, his trampling, his titanic size… However, a few days before, Babau had been of an exemplary discretion when it sneaks around to catch some children… Nobody had seen or heard it.
Any zoologist will assure you the difficulty he faces with the majority of the witnesses, when he requires an objective description and especially a reliable appreciation of the dimensions of the animal that they observed… and that even under good conditions. In Rivesaltes, the creature was seen at night, in winter, without the moon in the sky… The devil's advocate will be able to object: that once dead, Babau could be measured precisely and without risks. But that is equally an untested assumption.

Let us not leave the bones to one side!

The beaching of whales on the coasts causes human emotion, interrogations and interest. What could be more natural? That one sees the whale of Jonas or some other biblical or mythological monsters represented in the beached animal, that is comprehensible. That one makes these enormous remainders into disproportionate relics of prediluvian creatures and that one piously preserves them in sanctuaries, why not… Except…
One does not find these relics in churches along the coastline where, logically, they should be. One sees sailors, superstitious as all those who live closest to Nature are, preserving these relics and the traditions which are attached to it.
Oddly, the places that shelter these strange witnesses do not have any tradition on their subject, as with Prats-de-Mollo, or allot them, as in Rivesaltes, with the remainders of a terrestrial monster that is attached to the marine world… And the traditions which give an account of their existence and their significance allot them unanimously to the skin of a winged creature killed by the lord of Périllos…
To what then do these relics testify? What is their real significance, their direction?
If, in spite of the nonsense of the thing, the tradition is obstinate to associate these bones of a whale with Babaos, it is surely for a good reason. By their size and their aspect, the bones can recall a characteristic aspect of the monster, if not they would never have been associated with it. We will see that one probably replaced, in consequence of the disappearance of the true remains, those by others that were similar in size and nature. The impressive dimensions of the original relics authorized only very few possible and credible substitutes. It may be that the choice of the bone of a whale also answered certain esoteric considerations…

The identikit picture of a serial killer

We are in the presence of a large predator that operates by night. Babaos hunts when night has fallen. Babau always operates by night and has “enormous round eyes, brilliant and demonic, like those of a cat”.
He hardly fears man: he even nourishes himself on them! Few predators deliberately put men on their menu; the majority avoid us. He is intelligent, crafty and careful: in spite of the efforts of the authorities and the rewards, they are unable to kill him. The massacres continue...

Like every good predator, he applies to the letter the law of least effort and that of conservation of energy. He attacks the easiest preys: domestic animals, young children or stray shepherdesses.
A monster of such size collapses walls, makes a hellish noise, so much that people mistake it for an earthquake and is not satisfied with six babies or little children as a hunting trophy. It is too much effort to take such foolish risks for what to him would only be a cocktail snack! No predator worthy of this name would have such aberrant behaviour.
A night creature normally operates without noise. Babau had to act as an African deer that penetrates in an enclosure at night. It attacks only the smallest preys, the weakest, like children, because they offer little resistance and are easy to transport… Its hunting activities in the borough are fatally noisy and attract the attention of the adults all too quickly. It is then time for him, after having been satisfied, to give up the full belly he craves or to leave with the prey that is not too cumbersome to carry, nor to endanger his own safety…

Hunting for Babaos

When he returns from the crusade, the lord of Périllos immediately puts the destruction of Babaos at the top of his agenda. “He was equipped with three dogs and three servants, then followed for three days the terrible creature.” For years, in spite of the rewards and the efforts of the authorities, no-one arrived with any tangible result. Rather than mobilizing all the population of the region, the lord of Perillos prefers a small commando unit, which is thus very mobile to track the creature. After years of unfruitful hunting, in three days, he locates, tracks and kills the monster…
The lord of Périllos’ technique of hunting proves terribly effective. Does he have already some experience in hunting the monster? Or does he have precise information on the nature, the practices or the den of the monster? A family tradition, secrets preciously preserved by generations of “watchers”, “of initiates”?

Apparently, the wings of Babaos do not enable him to flee. Perhaps they only prove useful for a gliding flight over short distances, more like jumps. Unless they are not outgrowths, they may be the relics of wings, now without much use, nor effectiveness for flight… In any case, Babaos will not be able to outdistance its prosecutors, who end up driving it to the edge of a chasm. There, the monster will make a mortal fall.
The use of three dogs is also revealing. If they are effective to flush out partridges or bring back game, gun dogs are hardly likely to worry a creature the size of a whale, or to follow the track of a flying creature. For dogs to be effective, it might indeed need to leave olfactory traces of its passage on the ground, which the dogs can follow. But they will not scare Babaos.

“On the third twilight, the animal decided to face the warrior who had to strip three squares of weapon to deadly wound it.”
To kill an air predator – if Babaos had been one – an ambush near its food supply or its lodging is the best technique. The shooting in full flight, especially with a crossbow, requires the meeting of much more – too much – favourable parameters: a flight at low altitude, good visibility (hardly guaranteed with a night predator!), great dexterity in the handling of the weapon and great aptitude in shooting moving targets (it is necessary to take account of the displacement of the target, possible unexpected changes of course, drift from the wind, etc.). The crossbow is a slow weapon: the sophisticated models of 14th century only make it possible to send two squares to the minute, compared with a dozen arrows for an archer!
The choice of this weapon by the lord of Périllos is an invaluable key. The crossbow was already known since the first crusades, it is thus not the latest secret weapon that he would have stumbled across during the crusades or other expeditions. If it is slow, on the other hand, it is excellent, both for the accuracy of its shooting as for its power of projection. In short, it is the ideal weapon for shooting in full safety… Three dogs and three servants (equipped with spears?) were there to contain the creature, to leave him time to finish it off.

The lord of Fraisse and Périllos of the “Version of Rivesaltes” uses the same weapon he uses for his normal hunting of other animals and prudently stays within the shelter of the ramparts of the city.
One will note with interest the almost total absence of religious elements in the two versions of the legend: there is a procession – cancelled because of the night attacks of Babau. Contrary to the rules of these types of tales, one does not speak of a diabolic monster devastating the churches, devouring the virgins and testing the faith of the Christians. There are no saints, bishops or abbots that are forced to flee or are called upon to harm the Malignant by means of holy water, prayers or other holy relics…
There are not even chivalrous heroes, placing themselves under the protection of the holy Church, calling upon the Virgin… There is no almost obligatory perforation by a lance, to show the lord’s dominion over the demon, the final insult.
The lord of Périllos is not backed up by blessings or relics, but with a good crossbow and, either a small troop of trackers, or an enticing food supply and a good position for shooting. It is definitely less romantic, but it is much more realistic. By its sobriety, its imposing examination, the “Version of Périllos” thus still attains an epic quality… which adds to the possibility that this could have been a real incident, not a literary fabrication.

The mystery of the three bones

Why return with three bones and not the head or the tail of the monster? If the lord of Périllos spends three days to go down to the bottom of the abyss, one can imagine the advanced state of decomposition that Babaos is in, damaged already by the fall.
So why not the tail? Suspicious municipal officials could fear trickery, that a skilful assembly had been carried out, for example, with an enormous grass snake of Montpellier. It might lead doubt with the general public that the monster might not be dead after all.
The head? Was it, fallen to the bottom of the pit, sufficiently presentable, recognizable? Or, on the contrary, was it precisely far too presentable? Might it lead to a classification, or an identification, of the creature?
The wing is much more characteristic of its particular character. It is true that it is lighter, but also more cumbersome, unless one can “fold it up”. It preserves much better and allows for an easier distribution of the “relics”.
Finally, does the mention of the bones need to be understood in light of the account of the birth of the biblical Eve? Eve who originated from a bone – a rib – of Adam? The three chops of Babaos would then be three elements drawn from the side of the creature.

A pit or the den of the monster?

Mortally wounded, the creature is absorbed in a pit so deep that three days were required for the lord de Périllos to arrive at the carcass “of which he removed three gigantic chops in testimony of his combat”.
Three days! A pit of such an abyssal depth should have left traces in the collective memory and the local micro-toponomy. One can understand that a careful man took his time and the maximum of precautions to go down in a chasm. But such a duration draws suspicion to another possibility: perhaps this “pit” is more like an underground world…
Seriously wounded by the crossbow, Babaos takes refuge in the subterranean world from which it came. The lord of Périllos then tracked it for three days.
Absurd assumption? But if it is not an imaginary creature, Babaos must come from some place, even if it seemed to emerge from nowhere! One can always call upon the examples of Charles Fort and his collection of extravagant appearances and mysterious disappearances of incongruous animals, like the large cat-like creatures haunting Surrey.

Before reverting to another dimension as its place of origin, let us scan the Earth…
Few mediums are possible: only the sea and firm ground are likely. Nothing attaches our monster to the sea… The ground is much more promising: the lord of Périllos tracks Babaos in its usual “theatre”: the mountains. But deep pits are rare in the Roussillon.
The mountains can be observed from the castle of Opoul. In the south, beyond the plains of Roussillon, shine the crowns of snow sticking to the tops of the Canigou. It is here that the peasants claim that “malignant spirits” live, “demons”, the mysterious Cuitat de Balaig that hides at the bottom of the pond with the same name. The legend also tells that these walls shelter a fabulous treasure entrusted to the guard of a “terrible dragon”. Monsters that could be Cerberus – the Hound of Hell – a name known in the south of France – or the Palestine fairy, asked to protect the treasure of her father king Elinas of Albania. The treasure can be conquered by one of its descendants, almost like the human children of the Mélusine fairy. The beautiful Mélusine was the mother of Lusignan, the king of Cyprus, Armenia and Jerusalem. Mélusine who, every Saturday, was transformed into a creature that was half-woman and half-snake and which, when its secrecy was revealed to the world, disappeared from the castle in the shape of a winged dragon…

Dominique Setzepfandt