The Lais of Marie de France

The wife of Bisclavret, a popular Breton knight, is deeply disturbed that he is absent three full days a week and implores him to tell her the reason. At first, he refuses, prophesying that “I shall lose your love and destroy myself” (69). However, after further entreaties, he confesses that he is a werewolf. She immediately asks him whether he is naked or clothed during his lupine adventures. When he confesses that he goes naked and remains a werewolf until he re-enters his clothes, the lady asks where he keeps his clothes. He tells the lady about a hollowed-out bush near an old chapel. The terrified lady, meanwhile, does not want to sleep with Bisclavret anymore (69). As a result, she summons a knight admirer and tells him that she will become his mistress if he takes her husband’s clothes and prevents him from returning to his human form.

To the outside world, it seems as though Bisclavret is gone and the lady is free to marry her knight. A year later, while hunting, the king chances upon Bisclavret as a wolf in the forest. Bisclavret approaches the king and kisses his stirrup. The king recognizes that the beast “has the intelligence of a human” (70). He takes the wolf back to the castle with him, and Bisclavret, a gentle beast, is treated well by all the courtiers. The exception to Bisclavret’s gentleness is when he bites the knight who took his clothes and married his wife. On another occasion when Bisclavret sees his wife, he lashes toward her and tears off her nose. The king, who realizes that Bisclavret’s hostility is particular to this woman and her husband, tortures the woman until she satisfies him with answers. He forces her to get Bisclavret’s clothes. At the castle, Bisclavret puts on the clothes and, to the delight of the king, resumes his human form. The king then exiles the woman and her new husband. In their new land, the couple have multiple children, and many of the daughters are born without noses.