As long as there have been humans, we have huddled around the fire at night, for fear of what may be lurking in the darkness outside. Tales of creatures, neither man nor quite beast, have haunted our species for generations. One of these is the werewolf.
I’ve been interested in werewolves as a concept for a very long time, and I’ve put quite a bit of study into the lore of werewolves. Almost all cultures have something resembling a werewolf; a shape-shifting, typically malevolent entity that can transform from man into wolf and back again. This is a big topic and I’ll only be able to do a very brief overview of it, so strap in!
First of all, how does one become a werewolf? Hollywood would have us believe that being bitten by a werewolf is what causes the condition. This is not even remotely true. It was made up for the 1941 film The Wolf Man. There are many means of becoming a werewolf. Sometimes it’s the result of a curse from a god. Most of the time, it is self-inflicted. Viking sagas tell of fierce warriors called berserkers, who were said to be able to transform into wolves and bears in battle. The more likely story is that they wore animal skins and were tripping on mushrooms, but that doesn’t matter - what matters is the legend. Other stories tell of magical potions, sleeping outdoors in the full moon, or making contracts with demons. This was the case with Peter Stumpp.
Peter Stumpp was allegedly a German farmer who lived in the middle of the 16th century. Most of what we know about him comes from an English translation of a German pamphlet, the original having been lost to time. So the source is dubious at best.
After a number of wolf attacks near Bedburg, the authorities tracked down and wounded the offending wolf. They followed the trail of blood to Stumpp’s home, where they found him with similar injuries to the wolf. They then arrested him, and under torture, he confessed to killing and eating people and livestock.
According to this source, Peter Stumpp confessed to practicing black magic from the time he was a boy, and apparently the devil had given him a magic belt that allowed him to transform into a wolf. No such belt was ever found.
Stumpp’s case is the most extreme werewolf trial on record, but he is certainly not alone. There were many accused of lycanthropy throughout the middle ages and well into the modern era. Even a few within living memory.
In 1958, near the Romanian village of Poieni, a ravenous she-wolf attacked two women harvesting grain, horribly disfiguring one and killing the other. The wolf then went on to kill two men and a woman from the same family as the earlier attack, killing the men and disfiguring the woman before she was finally killed.
One might dismiss this story as just the tale of a random wolf attacking country folk in a rural area, but this could not be the case. Wolves had not been seen in the Poieni area for nearly a century. There was no trace of a wolf pack in the area. Furthermore, wolves never attack people, except out of desperation or because of rabies. Rabies was ruled out by the medical examiners who investigated the case.
It is believed by villagers in the area that this was a pricolici - an un-dead human soul who has returned to life as a werewolf. They believe that the attack was the result of a decades old curse.
Was that really the case? Are werewolves real? I don’t know. I’ll let you decide that for yourself. If you want to know more about this astounding case, you should check out The Paranormal Scholar’s fascinating analysis of the story.
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And if werewolves interest you as much as they do me, you will enjoy my upcoming book The Walter Ulric Files - thrilling tales from the life of a werewolf-turned-paranormal private detective. It will be available on Amazon this coming Halloween. I hope you’ll all give it a read.
Thanks for reading and have an inspiring week.