With the dark holiday fast approaching it only makes sense that my travel stories of lore get darker and more terrifying and scary in nature. Therefore, today I bring you the tale of Tarrare, a man or a beast, depending on who’s telling the story. This story, although unbelievable in every way, is not just an urban legend but a true story. In short, Tarrare is a man with an insatiable hunger.

If you’re looking for a Halloween tale to spook the kids, remember Tarrare is waiting to eat you.

Tarrare | The Man With an Insatiable Hunger

I love getting dark and spooky this time of the year, but first lets back up a bit. Lets start from the beginning. This story comes from France. A few miles outside of Lyon, a man was born. Despite always being hungry and eating as much food he could get his hands on, he was a thin man. In fact he weighed around a hundred pounds. He’s slender and tall with an unusually wide mouth. They said when he didn’t eat his skin would sag. In fact, his skin sagged so much he could wrap his sagging skin folds around his waist. His stomach expanded like he had just eaten a ball when full.

His teeth are stained and his cheeks sagged. They say he could fit 12 eggs in his mouth at once. His body was hot to the touch and he was constantly sweating. He smelled bad. In fact, you could smell him coming if he was near. He suffered from chronic diarrhea from all the food he ingested. It was the most grotesque diarrhea of all. Fetid beyond your imagination. A swamp of decomposition, to paint a better picture.

Although, records show no signs of mental illness they say he was apathetic and somewhat slow. The only odd thing was definitely his large appetite.

With Age Comes Hardships

As a teenager he ate so much his parents threw him out of the house. Unable to provide for their son he joined a group of vagabonds. A group of thugs and prostitutes that travelled throughout the country. Eventually, he landed a gig in the traveling circus as the man who ate everything. He swallowed whole animals, swords, stones, a basket full of apples and awed his audience. He took this act to Paris until he joined the French Military.

The military rations were unable to satisfy him. So, he took matters into his own hands and ate anything he could find from the gutters. His hunger grew so bad he eventually collapsed due to exhaustion and dehydration. At the hospital, they experimented on him. They allowed him to eat anything. He ate a meal intended for 15 people in a single sitting. Eating live cats, snakes, lizards and puppies at times… He also swallowed whole eels without chewing.

The French army later sent him across enemy lines as a spy. They figured he could eat important documents, cross back to French territory and gain the materials through his stool. However, they captured him on his first mission, tortured and returned to the French.

He decided he would never do that again and told the army he would submit to experimental procedures if they tried to cure him. So they tried… They fed him laudanum, which is a poisonous substance they used to put in alcoholic beverages intended to give you a slight high. He was given tobacco pills and wine, but so far, everything failed. In fact, he snuck out of the hospital multiple times to eat from the gutters. He ate trash he found floating in the gutters and anything else he could find.

Back at the hospital he drank blood from patients and began eating corpses from the hospital morgue. At one point they found the remains of a dead baby, half eaten and they had one suspect: Tarrare!

They kicked Tarrare out of the hospital where he disappeared for a few years. Several years later they found him with a bad case of tuberculosis. This was combined with an extreme case of diarrhea so bad, he died shortly after.

Tarrare is Histories Biggest Glutton

You see kids, some stories come from reality. In fact, it’s these real stories that are scariest. Perhaps it’s not the monster under your bed that’s spookiest. Maybe it’s not the witch in your wardrobe that scares you the most. It’s the skinny man who eats everything including children. The man with the mouth that’s too big to be real. So, next time you’re scared of that spooky ghost story at the campfire… Next time you wake up from that nightmare, remember it’s only fictional and be glad Tarrare lived in the 1700’s.

PIN THIS IMAGE ON PINTEREST