Add to favourites
The Simiots were monsters with the bodies of lions and the heads of monkeys who terrorized the inhabitants of the Vallespir region during the Middle Ages. They emerged from the forests to invade towns and villages, showing no fear of humans. These diabolical creatures climbed rooftops and descended chimneys. They seized children and carried them off to devour them in the mountains.
Real monkeys in the Pyrenees mountains?
"Chronicles after the 10th centurye century contain the naive account of the popular terrors that invaded Christian Europe as the year 1000 approached. Legend occupies an important place in them. But it seems that the Vallespir was particularly tested around this time. It probably experienced a catastrophic flood followed by famine.
Driven from their lairs by hunger and floods, wild animals: wolves, bears, wild boars, wild cats… wandered day and night in the countryside in inhabited places and attacked people. Through them we thought we saw monsters of strange shapes, unknown in our mountains.
The old chroniclers and the local tradition called them "simiots" because they looked like monkeys.
According to Jean Ribes
Legend borrowed from the Romans? Wild men?
Some hypotheses relate to a monster borrowed from the Roman bestiary. Others that it would be wild men or survival of Neanderthals in the Pyrenees (yeti). Moreover, during the bear festival, the man disguised as a bear was, at a certain time, called Simiots. At the end of this party, it is shaved to restore its human appearance.
Anyway, legend has it that the Simiots disappeared upon arrival of the relics of Saint Abdon and Saint Sennen. They were brought back in a sarcophagus (the Holy Tomb of Arles-sur-Tech) from Rome by Abbot Arnulphe. But that is another story…
The castle of Simiots
Legend has it that the Simiots had set up camp in the ruins of Rocabertí Castle (in the Albères mountains, La Jonquera). A traveler, caught in a snowstorm, asked for their hospitality. To warm himself, the man blew on his fingers, which greatly intrigued the Simiots . So, they served him a very hot soup, and they saw him blow on the soup again, but this time to cool it down… Faced with these contradictory events, the Simiots concluded that the traveler must be a sorcerer and threw him out into the snow!
