Country file · Europe
Cryptids of Portugal
What cryptids are in Portugal? The best-known is Lobisomem.
Portuguese folklore keeps a sorrowful kind of monster in the lobisomem, the werewolf of the countryside. Tradition says a family’s seventh son may be cursed to run, on certain nights, past seven crossroads, churchyards or parish boundaries, and to turn into an animal that is not always a wolf. Unlike many European werewolves he is pitied as much as feared, and the cure is to draw a little of his blood.
- 1 cryptid
- 1 recorded sighting
Cryptids reported in Portugal
The legends of Portugal
Beliefs vary by region; in Beira Baixa the creature goes by the name zargão. The legend travelled to Brazil, where the lobisomem is a major figure, and it still colours Portuguese village storytelling.
Hotspots
- Beira Baixa
A region of the interior where the werewolf is called the zargão and where the beggar-werewolf tale of Carvalhal was told.
Sightings timeline
- c. 1917Shaggy animal on a garden wall Lobisomem
An English girl raised in Portugal and her sister saw a large dark animal leap a wall and later linked it to the lobisomem; reported by Violet Alford in Folklore in 1942.