First
Appearance of Werewolf
The
Werewolf legend originated from countryside around the
German towns Colongne and Bedburg in 1591. At that time,
Europe was under the dark shadow of ignorance and superstition.
Towns were undeveloped and people lived near the woods.
The fear of wolves
was as terrifying as nightmares.
Their attacks were so frequent that people even feared
to travel from one place to another. Every morning,
the 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 towns Colongne and Bedburg made a horrible
discovery that altered the history of mankind.
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
had faced.
Stubbe
was put on the torture wheel where he confessed 16 murders,
including those of two pregnant women and thirteen children.
The history behind his downfall was rather strange.
He started to practice sorcery
when he was only 12 and was so obsessed with it that
he even tried to make a pact with the Devil.
Wearing a magic girdle he started attacking his enemies,
real or imaginary, for revenge. After several months,
he took the guise of a wolf and continued his evil activities
with more brutality. In the wolf form he tore up the
victims' throats and sucked their blood. Gradually his
thirst for blood grew and he roamed around the 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 drank warm blood
and ate 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 his brain.
No
punishment could match the magnitude of Stubbe's crimes.
He was put on the torture wheel and his flesh was pulled
off with a 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
in memory of 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 that of a wolf. People started to believe that
such creatures with the shadow of wolves were living
among them. They named them 'Werewolves'.
