Bestial Beast (Besta-fera)

The hooves come first, far down the empty street, too fast and too heavy for any horse a farmer keeps. Behind them swells the noise of dogs, a dozen or more, baying as though they have cornered something and cannot decide whether to be proud or terrified. In the small towns of the Brazilian sertão, on nights when the moon is full and the lamps are already dark, that was the signal to bar the door, drop to your knees, and pray. Nobody went to the window. Everybody knew what was coming down the hill.

The besta-fera, the bestial beast, has the body of a horse and the torso of a man, which has earned it the nickname of Brazil’s centaur. The likeness only goes so far. The centaur the Portuguese carried across the ocean ran on four legs in the old Greek fashion; the besta-fera rises and gallops upright on its hind legs, a horse standing where a man should stand. That single piece of wrongness does most of the work. Some tellers give it the snarling head of a wolf, borrowing from the werewolf it keeps company with in the folk imagination. Others say it has no head at all, and leave the listener to decide which is worse.

As for who lives inside that shape, the country answer is blunt: the Devil. On full-moon nights he leaves hell, takes the form of the beast, and rides out to press the mark of the beast onto the damned, sealing them for the fire when their time comes. The name itself carries the echo. Besta-fera is the term Brazilian Bibles use for the Beast of Revelation, and the legend never lets you forget it. This is not a mischievous forest sprite. It is damnation on hooves, out doing its rounds.

Its route rarely varies. It comes down through the deserted streets of some remote village, roaring like a wild animal, and runs without stopping until it reaches the gate of the local cemetery, where it vanishes into the ground without leaving a single track. A second tradition sends it crashing through the woods instead, until it finds a red flower soaked in blood and disappears into the petals. Either way the destination is the same. The living world is not where it belongs, and it does not linger in it.

It never travels alone. A pack of stray and runaway dogs streams after it in an infernal uproar, and the beast lashes the boldest of them with a whip as it runs, their yelps carrying for miles. Where it passes a yard with a chained dog, it stops and sets the animal loose, and this loosing of penned and tethered creatures seems to be the closest thing it has to a purpose. As it gallops it gives a long neigh that comes out closer to a whistle, and more than one person has sworn the whistle was really a laugh.

The worst of it is when the hoofbeats slow outside your own house. People who lived through such a night described the breath first, a heavy panting at the door that did not sound like anything from this world, and then the long claws dragging down the wood of the shutters. The old advice was to hold still and pray the Creed until the breathing moved off down the street. Those who could not stay still, who looked, did not come back unchanged.

What happened to them was strange in its mercy. To see the beast’s face was to lose your mind for several days, wandering and senseless, before the wits quietly returned. It hurt no one. That is the oddest detail in the whole legend, and the stories cannot quite agree on it: the older Portuguese accounts call the besta-fera a man-eater with a horrible roar that took its victims in lonely forests, while the Brazilian backland version insists that for all its thunder it never laid a claw on a human being. Terror was the entire transaction.

The creature came over with the colonizers, and its bloodline is partly literary. Medieval Iberian romance already spoke of the besta ladradora, a barking beast that the knight Amadis of Gaul hunted to its lair in the rocks, and that monster was called a besta-fera too. In Brazil the legend settled deepest in the interior of the northeast, in Pernambuco, Alagoas and Paraíba, where it grew up alongside the headless mule and the werewolf and traded details with both. It has relatives further afield, the devil’s ghost-cart that rattles through Venezuelan nights and the demon he-goat of the Colombian roads, all of them the same fear wearing local clothes.

For something held to be the Devil, it is oddly easy to keep at bay. A blade of silver, held in the hand and never even drawn, will bend its path away from yours. A common fishing knife serves as well, provided it has been blessed or dipped in holy water first. Faith does the rest. The sign of the cross, three Ave Marias at the mention of its name, the Creed murmured behind a barred door, and the beast keeps to its road and its graveyard and leaves the praying household alone. Its power is enormous and its hunger for souls is real, but it answers to silver and to prayer, and on the far side of the night it is gone, back underground until the moon comes round full again.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Bestial Beast?

The Bestial Beast, known in Portuguese as the besta-fera, is a monster from Brazilian and Portuguese folklore with the body of a horse and the torso of a man. It is often called Brazil’s version of the centaur, though it gallops upright on its hind legs rather than running on four. It is most strongly associated with the rural northeast of Brazil.

Is the Bestial Beast the Devil?

In most versions of the legend the Bestial Beast is the Devil himself, who leaves hell on full-moon nights and takes the form of the beast. Its very name, besta-fera, is the Portuguese term for the Beast of Revelation, and tradition says it rides out to place the “mark of the beast” on the damned so they are sealed for hell.

Is the Bestial Beast dangerous to people?

According to the Brazilian backland tradition, the Bestial Beast is terrifying but does not actually harm people, and there are no folk accounts of it killing anyone. Its main effect is fear: hearing its hooves drives villagers to bar their doors and pray. Anyone who sees its face, however, is said to go mad for several days before recovering. Older Portuguese accounts disagree and describe it as a man-eater.

How do you protect yourself from the Bestial Beast?

Folk tradition holds that silver and faith keep the Bestial Beast away. Carrying a silver dagger in the hand, even without drawing it, or holding a fishing knife that has been blessed or dipped in holy water, will turn the creature from your path. Praying the Creed, making the sign of the cross, or reciting three Ave Marias at the mention of its name is also said to keep it moving along its route.

Where does the legend of the Bestial Beast come from?

The Bestial Beast was brought to Brazil by Portuguese colonizers and has roots in medieval Iberian romance, where a “barking beast” hunted by Amadis of Gaul was also called a besta-fera. In Brazil the legend took deepest hold in the interior of Pernambuco, Alagoas and Paraíba, where it blended with the stories of the headless mule and the werewolf.

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