Victor Hugo's Ursus and Werewolf

The connections between King Arthur, Prince Ursus, and King Tafur are described in my book where I argue that they are probably one and the same person. King Arthur is well known. Prince Ursus (meaning bear) was the alleged leader of the Calabrian monks that left for France in 1070AD and subsequently created the Abbey at Orval, the Order of Sion, and eventually the Knights Templar. King Tafur was an early crusader leader of a band of vagabonds that had a taste for human flesh. There is werewolf, wolf and bear connections between all three of these figures that I mentioned in my book. Further, Arthur is Welsh for bear. Ursus is Latin for bear. And, Tafur is a likely corruption of Arthur. As was discussed in my book there were many stories of King Arthur and his werewolf knights.

Victor Hugo was an alleged Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, an alleged development of the Order of Sion created originally by the Calabrian monks led by Prince Ursus. Hugo was of course a famous and often controversial writer. Les Miserables was one of his most famous works. During his exile from France in the Channel Islands (because of the controversy his works caused at home) he wrote an unusual story. It went by two different names. It was called The Man Who Laughs, or, By Order of the King. It is a very sad story which features a boy who saves a much younger girl from freezing outside. They become friends. The boy has a 'smiling' disfigurement not unlike the recent Batman movie character The Joker, and the girl is blind. They meet a carnival vendor who takes pity on them and takes them both into his care. Oddly, the carnival vendor is called Ursus and he has a pet wolf that is called homo.

Analysing this just a little, we have Ursus (meaning bear) who is a man, and, Homo (meaning man) who is a wolf. Is this a deliberate intent from Hugo? To allude to the werewolf (homo, meaning man, and is actually a wolf) and the connection to Prince Ursus, leader of the Calabrian monks? This is a remarkable coincidence perhaps? Bizarrely, the boy child in Ursus' care turns out to be a part of a noble, aristocratic bloodline. For readers of my book this may strike you as more than a further coincidence. I speculated in the book that Prince Ursus must have taken something very special with him to France in order to garner support from the Angevin dynasty, the rulers of Francia. Perhaps then Ursus had guardianship of a child of a very special bloodline and this is what Victor Hugo was really trying to say? Victor Hugo's story is a complex one and it will take me some time to properly digest it before I can determine if there are other analogies or allegories. So far this wouldn't seem like pure chance.

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