Halloween Post for Oct. 5, 2004 - Werewolf Legend Origin

Werewolf legend originated from the countryside around German town Colongne and Bedburg in 1591. At that time Europe was under the dark shadow of ignorance and superstitions. Towns were underdeveloped and people lived near woods. The fear of wolves was like a nightmare. Their attacks were so frequent that people even feared to travel from one place to another. Every morning, countryside people would find half-eaten human limbs on their fields. They tried their best to kill those bloodthirsty creatures. But one day the inhabitants of the German town Colongne and Bedburg made a horrible discovery that altered the history of wolf killing.

An age-old pamphlet describes those shivering moments vividly. A few people cornered a wolf and set their dogs upon it. They attacked it with sharp sticks and spears. Surprisingly the ferocious wolf did not run away; it stood up and turned into a middle-aged man. They could recognize the wolf shaped man; he was Peter Stubbe of the same village. This Peter Stubbe was the first werewolf mankind has ever faced with.

Stubbe was put on the torture wheel where he confessed 16 murders including two pregnant women and thirteen children. The history behind his downfall was rather strange. He had started to practice sorcery when he was only 12 and was so obsessed with it that he even had tried to make a pact with the Devil. Wearing a magic girdle he started to attack his enemies, real or imaginary, for revenge. After several months, he took the guise of a wolf and continued his evil with more brutality. In the wolf form he used to tear up victims’ throats and suck warm blood. Gradually his thirst for blood grew and he roamed around fields in search of prey.

The savagery of his crimes was beyond imagination. Once two men and a woman were walking along a road that went through the forest he used to hide in. He called one of them. The man did not return for a long time and the second one followed his trail. He also disappeared into the forest. The woman fled from the area. Later, two mangled corpses were recovered from the forest, but the woman’s body never reappeared. It was believed that Stubbe had devoured it all. Young girls who played together or milked the cows in the fields were his frequent victims. He used to chase them like a hound, catch the slowest one, rape and kill her. Then he would drink hot blood and eat tender flesh from her body. Stubbe committed the most gruesome crime upon his own son. He took his son to a nearby forest, cracked the poor child’s skull and ate brain.

No punishment could match the magnitude of Stubbe’s crime. He was put on the torture wheel and his flesh was pulled off with red-hot pincer. His arms and legs were broken, and finally he was decapitated. His carcass was burned to ashes. As accessories to his misdeeds, his daughter and mistress were also burnt alive.

The Magistrate of the town Bedburg built a grim monument remembering the ghastly incident.Workmen put the torture wheel atop a tall pole with Stubbe’s head above it. His head was structured with the likeliness of a wolf. Sixteen pieces of yard long wood pieces were hung from the rim of the wheel to commemorate the poor souls of his victims. The words of Stubbe’s trial and execution spread across the lands. His brutality, their ways and atrocity were beyond human experience. His ferocity was readily related with the behavior of wolf. People started to believe that such creatures with the shadow of wolves were living among them. They named them Werewolves.

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