European monsters were also situated in anxieties outside of gender. One famous example is the tales of beasts that roamed the Massif Central region of France, an area known as Gévaudan. Like many other monsters of the late eighteenth century, these beasts (probably wolves that attacked women and children tending sheep) were explained as a consequence of Divine unrest. Beliefs in witches and fairies, satyrs, and other hybrids (including dog-men) were accompanied by stories of supernatural animals that could create sickness or death by glancing at their victim. One theory of the Gévaudan monster(s) was that it came from the East—a monstrous Simian from Malaysia. It was also identified as a hyena, a beast long associated, as we have seen, with Jews.

XREF: Connects to the hyena's long-standing antisemitic associations noted earlier in the book.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 355