After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - The Real Werewolf Trials of Europe

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

You've heard of the witch trials, but have you heard of the werewolf trials?!This fascinating history takes us to back to the 16th and 17th centuries, when panic spread through villages in mainland Europe leading to a number of people being tried and executed as werewolves.What evidence did they have? How did they believe you turned into a werewolf? And why did one man in 1691 claim to be a werewolf fighting evil?This episode was edited by Anna Brant. Produced by Stuart Beckwith and McKenna Fernandez. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.After Dark is a History Hit podcast.History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click to place your vote on the Spotify mobile app: https://open.spotify.com/s/xhg6PJa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Looking for more shady and sinister stories, sign up to History Hit. You can join us to explore the tragic life of the Bronties or discover the chilling story of Burke and Hair. Plus, with your History Hit subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com forward slash subscribe to start exploring the past. It's 1589, rural Germany. Peter Stump is about to die for one reason. They believe he is a werewolf. The anxious crowd watches in sickening silence

as the gruesome executioner raises his wheel. Peter's flesh is torn with red-hot pincers. His bones are shattered one by one. Only then comes the blade and the final flames. Village gossip says he hunted humans. prowling the countryside and eating flesh. But stump was far from alone. Across 16th century Europe,

the courts tried, tortured and executed dozens accused of becoming werewolves. But who were these people? And what could see you accused of being a werewolf? And where did the panic come from? Welcome to After Dark. Hello and we're not. Welcome to After Dark, I'm Maddie.

And I'm Anthony. Now, today we're exploring the fantastic history of werewolf trials in Europe. No, it's not some kind of 1980s horror B movie, although it should be. Might as well be. Dog soldiers. Have you seen that? No. Oh, my God, a classic.

This instead is a true story of accusations, arrests, trials and bloody executions of individuals believed to be werewolves. This is not a history. I was aware of that I... And that's not a history. Well, it is. is the crazy thing. Like I didn't think it would be, but it is. We're talking about 16th and 17th centuries.

Werewolves, presumably mythological creatures before this point, why are they crossing over into real life in this moment? Who knows, Maddie? I mean, truly, I know that sounds flippant. I hope you know because you're in charge of this episode. Nobody does. I am in charge of this episode. Yeah.

By the way, I haven't seen Indiana Jones. I haven't seen Star Wars. Why would you think I'd seen Soldier Brothers or whatever it's called? Okay, dog soldiers. Right, right. What's it called? Dog soldiers. It's literally like, it's not even a B movie.

It's like a D movie. It's literally, I think it's set in like Northumberland. It's basically like some British army soldiers on an exercise on a training area and a forest. And then they basically get picked off by werewolves one by one. And it's the best worst movie. You could ever see. It's like a classic. It's like a bad classic.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Perfect. No, no. I can get on board with that. Yeah. Okay, so this history is weird, first of all. We are about to encounter werewolves.

Are we? And a history of werewolvery. Thank you very much. We will situate ourselves in the early modern period for the most of this episode. Though we could go back to general folklore, which has no time period necessarily. you see werewolves in ancient Rome. They're very much there in kind of Nordic, medieval examples of folklore and tales. I mean, it's all folklore, really, because I'm talking about werewolves.

But it is something that comes adjacent to witch trials, which is why we're talking about it, because it's so very easily overlooked as a bit of a nonsense. And I'm very guilty of it, so apologies in advance. But there's something culturally happening alongside. it to place it in the same realm as the witch trial and to have similar kind of consequences. So yeah, it's an interesting one. It's contextually interesting, I think. Yeah, and surprising, I would say. Give me a really brief overview of a history of werewolves in terms of where are they cropping up in the archives, where are the references

to them. Are they a consistent creature throughout human history? Are they different things with different kind of folkloric rules around them at different times? Yeah, they're different over time periods. They're different even within the same time periods regionally. So what we often find is there's a contradiction between whether this is a man turning into a wolf or a man's soul, and it's so very often a man by the way, a man's soul entering a wolf. So it's not necessarily changing though that can happen. So immediately two different things. Immediately two different things. And that mostly there's a change happening just to say, but it's possible that it's the other thing.

There's also kind of amulets or things that can be employed to help you change. So we will encounter an idea that some kind of a belt is used. And if you activate the belt, you can change into a world. So there is definitely different ideas. The most common one is that you're changing from what I've seen. But there are other iterations of this too. And I guess this is going to come up as we go through, but I'm just going to pick up what you said there about.

the gendered aspect that this is often a history of men transforming, apparently, into werewolves. And you mentioned the witch trials there, and of course, men were accused of witchcraft, but predominantly across Europe it is women who are accused of witchcraft. And there's an interesting thing there immediately about the transformation into werewolves being kind of tied to objects on the body, you know, belts, maybe kind of decoration on the body, but witchcraft accusations are very different. It's often, you know, things that are happening within the domestic sphere. Thinking about, you sort of potions, cookery, creatures, like, familiars and all of that.

And it's very quite female coded in terms of the experience of the centuries in which that's taking place. So I'm going to bear that in mind. I think that's interesting. Talk to me then about the overlap with the witch trials. And, you know, we've covered. so much of that history specific to different regions, more generally on this podcast. But talk to me about how that overlaps with the werewolf accusations, because even the fact that people are believing in witches and werewolves is surprising to me, actually.

Yeah. But also what are the accusations then about, what did you say earlier, werewolf-fury? Werewolf-frey, yeah. Not sure it's the word. It is now. It is now. So what we have in common with witch trials at the most basic level is a pact with the devil in terms of this early modern wolf, werewolfry. And or I suppose we should probably refer to it as what is it like anthropology? That's the technical term. Anthropy?

Yes. Okay. That's the transformation of a person into an animal. Yes. Into a wolf specifically. Oh, okay. So the idea that they have communed with the devil, these generally men, but not always, but generally, and that they have made a pact and that they are going to then inflict harm. And I like this idea that you said, although witches can vary into livestock things too, but what you find with werewolves is they're having a much more external, way less domestic impact. and they are attacking communities.

That said, one of the tropes that comes up again and again, and I found this interesting because I was wondering if it's a way for them to cognitively deal with the kind of brutality of child murder or a child, so children come up in this a lot, where children are killed or there's some kind of attack towards children. So you'll see that. I think that's interesting because we were talking the other day off mic about fairy tales And a lot of the conversations that we've had in the episodes we've recorded in recent weeks have been about sort of folkloric aspects of the landscape.

We talked to Matt Lewis partly about sort of magical forests and forests as places where the rules are upended. And something that comes up again and again in fairy tales and is this idea of the wolf as this, you know, thinking about everything from Little Red Riding Hood to Peter and the wolf. you know, this sense of this beast, this creature, this threat that stalks the edge of domestic space of towns and cities that it's out in the wilderness somewhere. And it's so often linked to children and a threat to children specifically in these stories. So that is very interesting that in the early modern period, this is, you know, obviously in this case,

it's actually having an impact on people's real lives and people are being accused of it. But also that it's in the early modern imagination, in the stories, the folklore that's being told as well. Yeah, but you're talking about that kind of threat from actual wolves inspiring this. Well, absolutely. I mean, in Europe at this time, wolves are presumably in the landscape, are dangerous, what's happening, I think. And I suppose in that case, you know, are taking livestock, but would potentially be a threat to children, you know, playing in the fields.

Children, livestock, valuables. Children and livestock are valuable in this world, in any world, of course. But like, it's that it's your legacy. It's the continuation of your family line. It's also the day-to-day, potentially money or survival foods that you have. And if those things are threatened, it's threatening the kind of the very basis of often little societies. So this isn't necessarily an urban adventure story. You will often find that there's a village in. involved, there's a small town involved. But even when it is town wise, there's often some kind of forest around it or rural landscape around it in which the werewolf, the actual wolf lives and therefore the werewolf retreats to or takes the prey to. So it's feeding into real anxieties around livestock and actual wolves. And I think that's where we see some of this folkloric belief come from.

Talk to me. Okay, so we've got the idea of the wolf in culture and in practical terms in this moment. Talk to me about this idea of transformation. Is there a world in which, you know, a lot of werewolf literature, certainly, werewolves on screen. There's a lot of kind of body horror. Yeah. And there's a lot of interest in and anxiety around human bodies, around, you know, potentially

disabilities, is that what we're seeing in this case? I'm thinking about, you know, iterations that you get of, of werewolves in Harry Potter or Twilight, this idea of being linked to, for example, the moon, that it's this involuntary sort of cycle and that once a month or, you know, that you'll suddenly be kind of forced to transform, which by the way is interesting given the gendered aspect here, because often whose cycle is linked to the moon, it ain't men. So, you know, that's kind of interesting to me, but setting real life wolves aside, what does the transformation of man to beast look like in the early modern imagination? Various different things.

So it can happen. This is where these different ways that it can come about come into play. So we're taught. So as a base note, what we need to remember is, I'll remember. reference a book that we've all read at undergrad and actually I was obsessed with the idea of it. And since it's been updated, but it's Keith Thomas's religion and the decline of magic. So this is a very early modern text. I definitely did it during my my BA and M.A. And it shows the shift and the coexistence, particularly in the early modern period, then into the kind of enlightenment, supposed enlightenment,

about how religion helps to oversee the decline of magic. But that there is a period of time, particularly in the early modern, period where these two things in different regions and in different ways coexist together. Okay. And that feeds into the idea of transformation. But this is also sitting beside the, you know, the Protestant Reformation in Europe. This is also sitting beside different forms of aggressive Catholicism in different areas again in Europe and later on then in England in the reign of Mary the First.

So we get this on easy cohabitation of these two belief systems. Well, you say uneasy computation, but I mean, Christianity is full of transformation, right? And even, you know, the idea of the body of Christ, the blood of Christ, these are literally transformed things for you to consume. There is a sense of sort of bodily changes and that kind of magical shifting from one thing into another. So that's a really good point because it's uneasy for us. It wasn't necessarily uneasy for them. Yeah, that this concept is not new and it's actually part of your spiritual life. They're just not thinking about it in the same way we're thinking about it.

Right. But one of the ways in which that physical transformation might come about is you could done a wolf skin. So there could be, so you could be a person and I have a wolf skin hanging up at home and it is specifically made for the time of the month when I transform. And if I put that on, I'm in charge of my transformation. So that's one way that it could come across. And the idea is that if you put on a wolf's skin that you then magically become a wolf or that you are a person imitating a wolf. No, you become a, yeah. You become it.

In the real, real aspect of this. So that is a really ancient idea. You know, we think about what's the site that had, I think it's somewhere in Britain that had the prehistoric like priest headdress of a stag or some kind

of ancient horned creature. And the idea of, you know, sort of literal transformation you're putting on the bones or the antlers or the skin of a creature and you are inhabiting it in some kind of, you know, in the case of prehistory, you know, possibly some kind of ritualistic process, possibly with kind of altered states of consciousness, maybe psychedelic situations going on there. So that, I mean, that has been around as long as humans have been around, this idea of sort of human animal fluidity.

And stick with that idea of altered consciousness too, because actually in some cases, particularly where it's related to men, a transformation is linked to what we would now understand as forms of mental illness in terms of the mind not working in a certain way. And then think about the link between lunacy, the moon and madness and moon and lycanthropy and werewolves. There's a correlation here of madness of animalistic impulse that is not controlled by human society. So that's one way. The other way is, if you're a little bit more dainty like me, then you could transform into a werewolf through an oil. So that's a little bit more.

Through some toilet trees. So listen, I'm going to buy into it. If they're trying to sell me anything for my skin, I'll do it. So you just rub the oil on your skin. I don't really know what the significance of that is, how oil and wolves come together. But they do and it can help you transform. Okay.

I mean, again, thinking about, you know, we've done a lot on this show about, sort of early modern medicine, the idea of imbibing certain things to solve problems in your body. And I guess there's a sense of sort of transformational process going on there that you, if, you know, think about the humours, the balance of the humours and that sort of thing. So that makes sense to me. I guess there's an element, you mentioned the devil already. Is he just walking around selecting people at random to become werewolves? Oh, he is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're making a deal with him. And that's maybe, I think that's the one where maybe. left, well, a version of what we're left with in terms of that kind of, oh, this is painful. My bones are changing in my body. Yeah, someone's spine, like snapping. So that's him. And that's what we're going to see, I think, in the new Robert Eggers film, right?

That Aaron Taylor Johnson's done a lot of, like, body work. And as I was reading an interview with Eggers where he was talking about, like, you know, that the actor kind of taking himself to extremes in terms of his physicality and not using, like, AI and stuff to do that. and that it's very much like him doing that work. Side note, could you be, I know you're not an actor, but could you be bothered with that kind of method acting work? I think it's extremely arrogant.

And Anna Taylor Joy recently said, yeah, women don't really do it because they've got lives to live. Exactly, yeah, they haven't got time. And you can't go home and be a werewolf when you've got to, like, put your kids to bed and cook the dinner, etc. I don't know. Having said that, I thought in the, the preceding Robert Eggers film, Nospiratu,

what's her name, Lily Rose Depp's amazing physicality, and that was incredible, the way that she worked herself up, and there was all like this sort of foam coming out of her mouth and the breathwork and everything was, like, extraordinary. It's a really boring film, but beautiful. Beautiful. No, no, no, I loved it until the end,

and I don't think she needed to die, and I... Okay. If you're watching Robert, like, get in touch, we'll chat. Bobby! Yeah. So that's that kind of thing. But that does look like how that's going to transform with that. And I can't wait for that film, by the way.

Oh, God. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. And then the other one is, and this kind of feeds into witchcraft too, right, in another way. That a curse has been placed on you by someone else and they have imbued you with. And this is the kind of like almost the, this is anachronistic because this much later, but the kind of Jekyll and Hyde idea, right? That like you can be an ordinary person living your life, but you have this curse.

How did he? Oh, he was cursed, was he? I can't remember. Well, he does it with science, right? a doctor and he does it with science. He does it with science. But this idea of like, you know, you're living your life and then you transform in, you know, obviously thinking about a curse and that's the version that we have that comes down to

us in popular things like Harry Potter, right? This idea of being bitten by a werewolf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're talking here about maybe divine punishment or a magical curse. And I suppose again thinking about, you know, the links grounding this in reality, the links to possible mental illness, physical illness, you know, is there a world in which that is being read as divine punishment or some kind of magical curse?

And it's understood in those terms. Yeah, it is not a straightforward narrative. And we have inherited kind of one form of that narrative, but actually it's very, very complex. And the way that that manifests in the 16th century in Europe, is so multifaceted that it almost doesn't seem like the same thing sometimes. But we're going to get into the trials after this quick break. Okay, so we've set the scene, spoken a little bit about the kinds of transformations

that are on the cards in this world, how people understanding this. And I'm bearing in mind coming into this conversation we're about to have this idea of altered consciousness about belief people potentially believing they've transformed when they haven't, but also this idea of believing that your neighbours have transformed, the issue around being able to control it or not control this transformation, ushering it in or it being a curse that is unconsentingly happening to you. Let's go into the trials because we are here to ground this in some real history. We're in 1521.

We are. We are. Talk to me about this trial. Is this the first one we have? This is the first one we have, but it's not the very first ever one, right? Okay. But I'm going to say that because you said, let's ground this in some real history, right? I want to caveat this because we are suspicious of our sources at all times, right?

That's something we have to bear with. There is no court document for this, despite the fact that it is supposed to be a court case. We are left with the retellings of this from what become known as kind of demonologists. you could also call them folklorists. Okay. So in what century? In the 16th century. So it comes out pretty quickly.

But so it is contemporary to when it's supposed to be happening. But I just want to plant that just to be like, look, we'll approach it. So there's already a level of removal. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And we have Verdun, Burgot, and Monto, which sounds like some kind of bougie fashion line or.

No, it sounds like they make gorgeous, again, toiletries, like ointments. Yeah, 100%. I'll buy it. Yeah. And this, now, when I say this is not the first, it is the first European one, but we do get werewolf cases in other civilizations beyond Europe. But this is the first European one. And it is a traveller is fighting off an aggressive wolf and he is wounded.

Now, can I just say there are different retellings of this too. Okay. So you will find slightly different versions. Okay. But in this version, he's fighting an. actual wolf. He is, God love him. And he is injured. Yes. And but he survives. He's okay. And he's like, I'm not going to let this. Also, caveat, I would, this would never be me. I'm not going to let this wolf away with this. I'm going to follow the wolf blood trail because

obviously I have injured the wolf too because I'm such a. Okay. So immediately there's a kind of sharing of like fluids as a bodily exchange. They've both been wounded. They now have a bond between them kind of thing as a tie. I mean, I will say though, you can. I will say though, say that you wouldn't follow a wolf, but in this period, if you don't go and kill that wolf that you've wounded, it's going to come back, it might be after your livestock. If you know there's a wolf in your area, you have to get rid of it. Yeah, I still wouldn't do. But I get what you're saying. Practically speaking. I mean, there are lots of reasons why you wouldn't survive the early modern period. You would be in by wolf instantly. Okay, yeah, yeah, sure.

I'm just a fair maiden at home and not hoping for the best. That's me. Someone else is killing your wolf for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. Anyway, he follows the The blood trail, but actually the blood trail takes him to the local home of a local farmer called Michel Verdun. Okay. And he is being treated for a similar wound to the wound that this traveller inflicted on the wolf. That attacked him. Wait. Go on. Yeah, no, untiret.

No, hold on. So the traveller. Unnamed. Has fought the wolf. Yeah. He has wounded the wolf. Yeah. And he has been wounded in return.

and the wounds are matching. No, no. Okay. So the man who's looking for the wolf is not that wounded. The wolf is quite wounded. The wolf is wounded. The traveler is wounded. The traveler is grand, like, maybe has a bite in his ankle. I'm making that up.

I have no reason to believe that happens. He's lost an arm. But like, let's say the wolf's ear was bleeding, right? Then he goes, this man travels to Michelle Verdun's house. Why? Because it's a local house. The blood trail leads him there. I see what's happened now.

Okay. Okay. And then he goes, here, Michelle, you've got the same wounded ear as me wolf did. Michelle's the wolf. Oh, thank you very much. I've heard it out. Yeah, yeah. But he wasn't acting alone.

Michelle was not acting alone. He had two accomplices, Pierre Bourgoe and Filippeimonto. Right. Sorry, accomplices in what turning into? Wolfery, I don't know. Whatever wolves need accomplices. Well, they travel in packs, right? Very true.

Someone's read Twilight. I haven't read it, no. Oh my God, never do. But I've seen the films. You've read Twilight out loud on this show before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but apart from that, I've never read it. Okay, so hold on. And interestingly, they're all shepherds, right?

Yes. So Michelle Verdun is a shepherd. Bergo, Bogot, however we're pronouncing that, and Monto are shepherds. They are. And the story goes, they're like, oh, why an owl wolf? And they say, what else would we be? We're just protecting our flock from other wolves. And we made a pact with the devil.

This is a packed with the devil story. We made a pact with the devil to protect our own flocks by us also becoming wolves. And so then, but, but just to add a little bit of bassinist to the top of this thing, one of them, Monto, is also accused of killing children. Oh. Okay, so is this, this idea of like, if you imitate something dangerous, you will go too far? This idea of like, if you impersonate a wolf or you take on the characteristics of a wolf, there is a point at which you will forget yourself and you will lose control. Yeah, don't go too mad lads.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, like just know your limits kind of thing. Don't be making deals with the devil to protect your sheep. Like it's all very well protecting your sheep, but then you might be killing the neighbor's kids. the next second, like just chill. And listen, there's a lesson in that for all of us. Excess is bad. I'm not sure what the lesson is, but it's in there.

But anyway, look, there is, apparently there's a trial, but may I add, it's apparently an ecclesiastical trial. Okay. Because God's happy. Well, I was about saying this is very much like a moral tale, right? Yeah. Okay. So, sorry, what exactly are they accused of?

Okay. This document tells us, or the demonologist tells us, that they're accused of sorcery. Yeah. murder and cannibalism. You'd imagine the al-canibalism might be covered. Well, no, you have to be punished for that too. It's the medieval period. Well, I think you should always be punished for cannibalism.

That's my personal stance. Okay, so there's an ecclesiastical trial. We're reading this through a removed source that is remembering this or reporting it vaguely around the same time, but written by demonologists or folklorists. as we would maybe call them now. So we have no actual record of this trial taking place necessarily. What is the outcome of this trial that did or did not happen? Sure they're burnt alive and killed.

Okay. Dead. So deal with that, Maddie. They're burnt at the stake. Yeah. Burnt at the stake for... Cannibalism? Pat to the devil, becoming wolves.

killing the neighbor's kids, presumably eating them. Yeah. Tell me, give me the percentage of this trial that you are buying. 100%. No. I've sold as well, apparently. Yeah, really well. Despite my intentions.

I mean, it's hard, isn't it? The source material is not reliable. Do we interpret this as, you know, sort of troubled rural communities, threatened by actual wolves, this idea of a traveller coming in. So, you know, is this an outsider who's come into a community that is in some kind of argument

that they're hurting each other in some way? You know, there's this idea of the protection of the flock. But who is protecting whom from what, I suppose, is the question? Is the wolf a kind of metaphor for like beastliness within men, this idea of, you know, that sort of murderousness, I don't know. Is there a real wolf involved that has taken some children and that human beings are punished

for it because the wolf isn't found? It's really hard to tell. But I think for me, the idea of the traveller coming in is key. And it also feels, that feels very kind of folkloric. You know, it's like, once upon a time a traveler was walking along a road and he came to a village. in the village. So, you know, it's very much that. It's like the way...

Once upon a time before this and it's something else entirely. Yeah, exactly. So I'm not convinced that this is real. Take me to another trial and please can you give me some more source material and prove to me that this is a history? No. Thank you. And I'll start from the very beginning because...

So this is the 1589 trial of... Okay, so hold on. The first one was 1521. We're still in the same century. 1589, a few years later, okay, go. Peter Stump is the man that we're talking about here. Oh, okay. Not French then.

Not French, no. We're talking about Cologne. It is the werewolf of Bedburg, or as he becomes known. Now, I want to caveat. Yeah, that's not nominative determinism. He's not born with that name. I wonder what this man might do. He, so, so Peter Stump, S-T-U-M-P-P.

It's also sometimes known as Peter Stubb, S-U-B-E, or Peter Stubb, S-T-U-B-E, or Peter Stumpf. My favourite. MP-F, right? Now, I am not convinced that that was even his name. Oh. And we'll find out why in a minute. Okay, okay.

So little has known about him before the accusation, which is fair enough. You know, this is... We always talk about, you know, a lot of people in history. You only find out about them because they've committed some kind of perceived crime. Exactly. He is a farmer. He is relatively well off. He is a widower. He has two children.

Okay. So again, we've got the elements here. We've got rural countryside. We've got two children again. A widower. I mean, this is, this is a fairy tale in the making. We just need an evil stepmother now. You're not going to get it, but you are going to get a werewolf. Okay. Hit me with a werewolf. So this, the whole kind of period is very politically and religiously unstable. There is a lot of contextual moving parts going on. We are in Germany. Well, what we now understand is, Germany in the German states in the time of the Reformation. So, you know, there's a lot of moral ambiguity. And a lot of kind of spiritual reassessment, I suppose, for sort of ordinary people having to try and keep up with what is doctrine now. Like, what is, how do we understand the world around us? Is it, you know, are there these unseen forces?

What is the church saying? What are they not saying? What did we used to believe in that we can't believe in now? What has been newly introduced? There's a lot of that, I guess. Absolutely. And there is a world in which people. Peter is thought to be a reformer.

So an early version of what we would now understand as Protestant, basically. So he is part of that wave of new understandings and new way of looking at things. So a figure of suspicion of some people. Maybe. Yeah, exactly. We could say this, right? Okay. The accusation goes that Stump is accused of attacking people and animals as a werewolf.

He is accused of murder and cannibalism. So we have those two things coming back here from the 1520s as well. And under torture, he confesses to killing up to 16 people. Now, can I caveat this in terms of, I'm always caveatting things. I feel really boring. But like, that's our job, I guess, as historians, to go, well, hold on. I've also heard a retelling of Stump's story where he is found out in a very similar way to the 1520 French version where he attacks as a where. wolf, a man, I don't know who the man is.

And is injured. And is injured. And the way he is injured is he cuts off his hand. And it becomes, Paul, yeah. And it becomes a stump. Hence the name. Hence the name, Peter Stump. Okay.

So we have physical difference in this story. Potentially. Potentially. Because in this version, he isn't physically different, but in another retelling. Okay. Also, just thinking about the overlap with the witch trials here, one thing that we get. And the witch trials is obviously confessions under torture. not reliable, but also this idea of searching the body for telltale signs of witchcraft that

you've made a deal with the devil, that you've got the devil's mark on you, the devil's coming to sort of suckle at your teat or whatever it is. And then here we've got a similar thing where we have, you know, the crimes that you're committing, the horrors that you're committing as a werewolf are then marked on the body from those interactions. And that is how you're caught. The crossover is really significant. And again, thinking about the religious context of this, you know, thinking about the marks on Christ that you would see in church you would see the spear wound in his side

the marks on the hands and you know, I think there's a the emphasis that's put on that in terms of magical transformation in terms of the body both physical and human but also divine or magical in some way that is an element that everyone is

experiencing in church on Sunday in this period that they are familiar with in a different context. But this is the same extended universe, right? We've got the devil here. This isn't, it isn't like Christianity and then magic over here. It's all playing into the same way of understanding the world. Supposedly, because what I want to introduce now is that throughout all of this, we are finding voices of dissent that are going, this isn't true. Right? So that's very prevalent in all of these stories. It's definitely prevalent in this story as well.

But you're absolutely right to introduce it because Stump claims that his lycanthropy is because of a pact with the devil. So he is saying that that is the reason, and I only commit these crimes of murder, child murder, when I'm a wolf. It's the wolf that's doing it. It's the devil that's doing it, almost, right? So he's bringing that idea in, oh, and by the way, he's one of the people that transforms via a magical belt, whatever that looks like. Love that for him. Well, I mean, we've talked as well on the show before about the sort of magical properties of belts thinking about the birth girdle, the belt that you would wear when you went into labor.

It does look a bit like that, actually. Yeah. And it's, you know, sort of in that case, it's imbued with prayers. It would be handled by the expectant mother by the midwives. You would read off it. You would touch it. you know, and it had these kind of properties of like protection and calling God to you to help you to give birth. And it's kind of an interesting similar thing there, but in reverse.

And I wonder if that's the gendered aspect actually, because it's for a man that it's not to do with birth and calling kind of good spiritual vibes to you, but actually that it's does the opposite. It can also do the other thing. Yeah. And that it's, again, a kind of transformation, right? Birth and this transformation into a wolf is kind of a similar sort of process of. arguably body horror, but you know, that kind of the almost coming as close to death as you can get without dying. I think that's potentially an element here. So we know that he confesses under torture, obviously not reliable at all.

And the fact that he's saying he's made a pat of the devil is probably nonsense. It's probably someone's poking with a big hot stick saying you. They literally are, by the way. Oh, okay, lovely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he is found guilty of verbal thing? All and everything. And he is sentenced to death.

His body was torn apart by hot pincers because he is held up as this like this is the most disgusting thing you can be. You can if you make this. Because it's subhuman. Because it's subhuman. It's devilish. You have betrayed God and mankind. And you've become essentially an animal. He was broken on the human.

the wheel. He was beheaded and burned. But this was one of the, so he's done all the things were done to him, basically. But this is one of the things I found fascinating about this because I was a bit like, oh God, okay, you don't really get this in witch trials. So if we're, if we're trying to look alongside them, it's not that you don't get this running through families, but his, his mistress, because his wife is dead, his mistress, as she's referred to in the in the pamphlet. Okay. And his daughter are also both executed. What? Yeah. So I'm not. Conspiracy to werewolf? Like what's the crime?

She's seen as a bloodline, the daughter. And yeah, the mistress thing, it changes from source to source, the fact that he even had a mistress, or the fact that she was also communing with the devil in whatever aspect that she might have been, be that through lycanthropy or through witchcraft herself. So you don't really get that in witch trials in the same way. Yeah, yes, it's sort of, you're not tainted by association

in the same way in which trials necessarily. Yeah. I'm just thinking of the Pendle which is

that is a bit tainted by society but I know what you mean they are tainted but they're told that they're witches his daughter's not

suspected of being a werewolf no I wonder if there's something about the sort of abomination here of you know

thinking about his mistress and you know maybe a sort of sexual relationship with the man but also with the beast if there's

something of that going on and you know you mentioned the bloodline in the case of the daughter is there something

like she is the you know, the product of an animal kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. There's something kind of tainted about her. I mean, that seems incredibly... Unlikely. Yeah, yes.

No. I mean, the sheer brutality of this is incredible. Yeah. Is incredible. Talk to me, I mean, you've mentioned that like pamphlets are playing a role here, and that is how we're coming to this particular trial that is recorded in a pamphlet. But something we know throughout the early modern period into the 18th and 19th centuries is the power of print media in terms of telling a good story, selling copy is important,

even in this moment, you know, this sort of recording stories in this quite extreme sensationalist way. Is, is werewale-free just good business in this moment? Yeah, probably. Let's be honest. I'd buy this. I would buy a copy of this. It's the true crime of its day, kind of. Yeah. Because the other aspect of this actually.

True crime, fantasy. Yeah. You know how a huge fantasy is now. Like the other side of this is that Peter Stump or whoever Peter Stump really was was actually just a serial killer. And he used the idea of a pact with the devil in order to potentially negate his responsibility. So there's a world in which you really did kill people then. Yeah. Well, we don't know for sure because of the kind of sources we're dealing with here. But it's what some historians have hypothesized that.

But yes, there is a pamphlet that first of all, the version, first of all comes around, the version of the story comes around first in German broadsides. So it's well known. But it even makes its way to London. So we're talking about like the year later, 1590. Oh, it makes its way all the way to London. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's essentially like a Europe-wide story.

And therefore, if it's making it to London, it can make its way to the quote-unquote new world. It can be a global, impactful story. And we have some images here of what that looked like. So we're 1590, a true discourse declaring the damnable life and death of one stub Peter, by the way. Now we've invented it. Okay. Inverted it a little bit.

It's 21 pages. Well, then you had to tell a good tale. And you've got to set up a lot of context, a lot of backstory. And then, you know, give a lot of room to the crimes. Yeah. But think about how relatively new, well, I mean, but still, relatively new the printing press is. We have, well, okay, my historian brain is going, not really, but kind of. Well, also, the absolute effort it took to create one page.

This is the next thing. This is what's going to see. So they knew this was going to sell. Okay. Exactly. And so I have some images here from it for you. Give us an owl description of these. Now, I will say the ones we have are multicolored.

They're big colored at a later date. Yeah, okay. So this is a panel of images. There's four at the top and four at the bottom. And it's a kind of progress. It's like a, you know, here we're going to follow Peter Stump's adventures as he goes about killing people. So in the first image, we have a sort of rural scenes, a sort of hint of a landscape and a tree. In the foreground, we have a man lying on the floor being mulled by what looks very specifically.

like a wolf. This is not some kind of werewolf creature exactly. It looks like a dog. It's as you would as you would depict a wolf. And then the man is being sort of yeah as I say mauled, bitten, there's blood his flesh is sort of being torn. In the background of that image however

we have a kind of wolfman hybrid. Wolf on the top half men's legs standing on his hind legs this is you know the sort of the transformation taking place. And the next scene we have what looks to be like a hunting scene maybe.

Maybe this is the werewolf being hunted by the local community, you know, men gathering together to kind of flush it out. We've got a man now, presumably Peter Stump, being arrested and taken to the authorities. In one panel he's appearing before a man on some kind of throne. maybe this is some ecclesiastical figure of authority and then we have poor old Peter stump well poor old Peter he may have been a serial killer strapped to a wheel

being tortured and pulled apart there's a man I'm sorry for laughing but as a man holding some pincers and he looks like he's sort of trying to take his peck off or kind of pincering his nipple it's a bit intense then there's a man

with an axe who is hacking parts of him, then finally there's a man who comes on with a sword and cuts his head off. And finally, as if that wasn't bad enough, the body of Peter Stump in the final panel is being burned at the stake. And his poor wife and mistress as well. No, not wife and mistress, daughter a mistress.

That would have been a nice little arrangement he had going on there. That would have been a bit awkward right at the end. Yeah, sorry, his daughter and his mistress. Um, it's, it's a bit, there's a lot of focus on the torture. A lot's given over to that. Um, there's a lot of kind of, yeah, body horror going on here. Um, it's, it's a bit intense. You can see that this would be entertaining to people.

I don't know that it's being taken that seriously. I agree. I agree. I'm not even sure that this dates very well. I mean, look at some of the renderings in that. I'm, it's not giving me 16th century. So like, it's, it's like, I don't, I don't know. I kind of hate it.

Yeah. I think it, so it reminds me of this is this kind of a tradition in the early modern period of depicting kind of gruesome events on playing cards. And it's a little bit like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one of the, a really gruesome murder by a woman of her husband that I wrote about my first book appeared on playing cards. And it's reminding me of this.

She's eventually burned at the stake. And there's, you know, there's sort of, it's a progress of her crimes. We have her killing her husband. We have her chopping up his body. We have her hiding the body parts around London. And then we have her at the stake finally when she's caught. And this is very much that thing of sort of, you know, here are the beats of this story. And it is a story, right?

This is a storyboard, essentially. Yeah, a comic strip. Yes, it is a comic strip. Yeah, we've got some quotes as well from the London pamphlet. Kind of describing this transformation. And he says he was straight transformed into the likeness of a. greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, and mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth. It's overwritten. Strong, mighty, great, large, great, wide,

sharp, cruel. Your editor's going to say, take some of these out. You don't need all this. We have a message to convey here, but... Yeah. Sidebar about if Peter Stump was actually a serial killer. I'm always fascinated by the idea that, question, were there serial killers throughout history or is it a relatively modern thing because of how society organizes itself? Were there cavemen serial killers? So there was another trial in 1598 called the episode on it. We'll answer this question. I just don't know the answer, but it's an interesting question. Yeah. Okay, sorry, another trial. 1598. So we're at the end of the 16th century.

We're going to get to this question. We will. No, it's a good question. Okay, so we've had 16th century trials that may or may not have actually taken place. We're now going to move into the 17th century, quite late into the 17th century. It's quite an interesting one in 1691. Tell me more information, please. Yeah, 1691, as you say, this is the Livonian werewolf.

Okay. And we're talking about theus of Kaltenbrun. And where is that, Anthony? Sure, I haven't got a clue. He's an elderly, no, I do have a clue. He's an elderly man from Livonia, which is modern day Latvia slash Estonia. Obviously, the countries are not carved up in the same way they are now. He has put on trial in 1691 for claiming that, by the claim that he is a werewolf,

which he openly admits without torture in this case. So remember, though, what I said before about mental health. Okay. Yeah, this is a very interesting one. They link to what would have then been referred to as lunacy, lunar cycles, etc, etc. He denies, though, having any kind of a link to the devil. So he's saying, yes, I am, but that's not how I came about it. Okay.

Which is kind of unusual in itself. He claims that he and others descended into hell during certain times of the year, which when I read that first, I was a bit like, so it is the devil then. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. They are going in to fight evil, fight witches, and to fight Satan. Oh. So this is a good fellow, well, he's saying he is anyway. And their aim is to recover livestock and crops that had been damaged or destroyed by the devil.

So we're coming back to that same thing that we're seeing in the first and second story is livestock and crops. Yeah. Yeah. So it comes back in again. Okay. And he sees him and his fellow werewolves as protectors of the community. So again, this image that they're in. circling their encampment to reduce it down to that, but like just for a visual, that they are, I literally can visit wolves running around the perimeter of this place. So that's what he's seeing. And if they are lost, if this, you know, pack of wolves is to disappear from the world, then humanity is doomed because we will be overrun by famine and by pestilence and disease and all kinds of things. I think this is interesting as well, because he, he opened.

admits to it, but he says that there are others working with him. And that is obviously something we get in the witch trials that we have, you know, individual people accused of witchcraft, but often there's a coven of which is, you know, there are more to be discovered. Who have you been working with kind of thing? And it's interesting that that, because I often think about, even though you know, you're mentioning their kind of packs of wolves, I think of the werewolf as a lone figure in a lot of the stories that are told, right? It's just an individual, I mean, twilight aside. You know, there's a sense of this being a kind of lonely experience, that it is a curse,

that it's something terrible way you have to go and remove yourself from society to keep everyone safe. Which is very on wolf-like, because that's not how actual wolves operate. No, they're in packs, right? They're packs. They say as experts on canine things. But then lone wolf is a common phrase. So maybe there are wolves who get separated or who, yeah, interesting. Anyway, there's no such thing as wearables, none of it matters.

I'm also interested in this idea of protection. So they're saying that they're protecting crops and livestock is, I suppose, thinking about, obviously, we've talked about the threat of actual wolves in this landscape and other animals, bears, you know, wild boar, all of that. Is there a sense in which this sort of these magical transformations are protecting from things like famine as well, right? because I'm thinking about the volatility of farming in this period, whether it's crops or livestock, the threats to your livelihood are endless. Is there a kind of magical element to protecting against that? I'm going to say no.

And here's why I'm going to say, I mean, the answer is also yes. But I'm going to say no, because what happens in the outcome of this trial is that the judge hears this story that your man makes up. And he goes, stop wasting my time. and he's not found guilty of being a werewolf. He is given, I think, 10 lashes, but lashes anyway, for promoting supernatural. So he's now, so right? So remember I said at the very beginning, there is a lot of people in all of these cases that are like, stop pissing me off.

You're annoying me now. I've got sheep to rare. This is a waste of time. You're wasting my time. But it's allegorical in terms of what you're saying, in terms of that protectionism and I mean, this guy says he's one of the hounds of God. So again... There's an...

This idea of sort of altered consciousness is coming in here, right? Like, whether it is mental illness or whatever is happening. And we can't know. But it sounds like this is his delusion almost, rather than society putting it on him. Certainly it sounds like the judge thought that, right? We're going to have a short break. And then we're going to come back and discuss why these trials actually happened, because they seem to all be so varied in terms of the accusation.

in terms of who's making them, who's making these claims, and what is happening to the people at the centre of them. So join us in just a minute. Talk to me about why these trials actually happened then, because there seems to be so much variety. There's so much that's unclear. There's so much kind of historical fog to wade through. The source material isn't clear, but we know that these trials are being reported in this period, in the early modern period. whether we have the court transcripts or not, you know, they, they are entering kind of popular culture. They're making their way into pamphlets across Europe. The stories, how much kind of fact they're actually based on doesn't really matter in the fact that they are, they are entering the discourse at the time.

Yeah. Yeah. I think, so I think why they happen is also kind of, coexistence where they go, if that makes sense. And by that, I mean, I have a feeling this is one of those instances in the past where if we were sitting with somebody who was aware of these stories from a contemporary setting, so somebody from France in 1520, somebody from the German states in the 1590s, and then France again in 1691.

Well remembered. Thanks. And not France, actually. Latvian, Estonia. But from Europe. But if we were sitting with them, they'd be like, oh, Don't take this so seriously and literally, guys. That's not what was actually...

Only they would say that in French, but sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And even French, we wouldn't understand. It's one of those things, isn't it, that historians, we have to kind of think about the footprint we're leaving behind and some of the things that people will encounter in three, 400 years time, if there's still a planet, to go,

this is what those people believed. No, this is what they were, this is what that section on the internet was talking about. It's not necessarily reflective of what society is dealing with overall. Yeah, okay. But don't underestimate

the importance of a good yarn. Yeah. At the same time, you know? We looked at that panel of drawings from the middle trial, the stub trial. And we have somebody laid out on a rack.

We have, you know, it's very reminiscent in an altogether more rudimentary way of what happens around the Jack the Ripper case in 1888, where we have literally people's insides being shown on the front pages of newspapers, not to communicate the degradation that these women had endured, but to titillate. Yes, yeah, yeah. And to entice and to spread fear and to, dare I say, excite. why is it then

that this the belief or fear of or suggestion of werewolves coexist in this portion of the early modern period with the witch trials but the belief in witches

has pervaded far more broadly across time and culture that we are still talking about witchcraft we have witchcraft on the internet internet. We, you know, the, we're still talking about it in the 18th, 19th, 20th century. Whereas werewolves, I mean, we're still making films about them, still writing books about them. You'd be hard-pressed. It'd be a small portion of the population worldwide that would today

truly believe in the possibility of a werewolf. Yeah, certainly it doesn't lend itself to cultural adaptation in the same way that witchcraft does, right? In that now they're self-proclaimed, witches that will draw links between the historic witchcraft, but it's not necessarily the same thing. There's very few people that are claiming to be werewolves. Nobody's trying to bite Donald Trump as a werewolf, but they are casting curses against him as witches. Nobody's trying to bite Donald Trump as a werewolf, right? Yeah, it's like, what? Yeah, yeah. But why do they coexist in the world of witchcraft? where credence does come into it a little bit for me

is the idea of the devil. So we know that the devil is pervasive in the 16th century and we know that the early modern world is a world that is inhabited by a Satan figure. And so what he can do is limitless, what Satan can do, or the idea of Satan can do, is limitless. And it does feed into all of those tropes

that you've talked about earlier about. There is a forest over there and the dangers that lurk in that forest start threatening my life. Exactly. Because it's like, well, there's an animal in there that's going to kill my livestock. And then if that livestock's dead, I can't eat. And if I can't eat, I die. I almost, I think it is that. But I also think it's about the monster within when it comes to love, right? And I think this is, again, this gendered aspect. So accusations of witchcraft are so often leveled at women. And it's about trickery. It's about deception. It's about

appearing to be one thing, but secretly behind the scenes being another. It's a about manipulation of secret invisible forces to get what you want or to get ahead or to advance your cause in some way. Whereas the werewolf, which is most often a man, is about uncontrollable rage. Yeah. It's about violence against children, against women. It's about, you know, kind of abominable just explosion of violence. And I wonder, I'm just thinking of the Robert Eggers film that's coming out, I think, this winter. you know, I'm kind of interested, whilst that is set in a very specific historical moment, I'm interested in what the idea of the werewolf will mean, you know,

thinking about other kind of monsters that have come back from folklore into our popular imagination, whether it's the vampire, whether it's the witch, and the ways that they have manifested themselves in our own culture, in line with our own anxieties, what is the werewolf going to mean for us? it still exists for us today in our culture and in some ways. What is the 21st century werewolf going to be? And for my money, it's to do with male violence. And that's not to say that it was throughout history. That's not, you know, don't put me in the comments of being woke.

I just think they will. They will. But I think for me, the gendered aspect in the early modern period, and I think today is very interesting. And I think that idea of the uncontrollable anger, the uncontrollable transformation, something that's unpredictable. And also the fact that a lot of the men in the early modern period

that are accused of this say that they don't take responsibility for the crimes they may have committed because they say, well, the red mist came down, I was transformed into a wolf. And I just think that's an interesting element here. No, definitely. Like, it's there. So why would we deny the fact that it's there?

And what I think is even more interesting is it sits alongside also a narrative, which comes into the 20th century werewolf of protectionism at the same time. I'm protecting the flock, I'm protecting the herd, I'm protecting the family unit.

And again, that's a gendered concept. Think about, because I have seen the films, Twilight, what does that weirdo do? But the role is protection, right? Clearly, Team Edward, not Team Jacob. But like, do you know what I mean?

Yes, yeah. So that's come into, now, Agar's, I have a feeling is not going to be taking that, trope forward. We'll see. We'll see. But it is interesting.

But also, even if that's the case, it's still very gendered and it's still what are men capable of protection or outright violence. Yeah. And sometimes it's both coming together. And having to separate the conscious male and the unconscious anger within or harnessing it for good or for bad is interesting, I think. Do you know what? this has been more interesting than I thought it was going to be.

Yeah. You always do that to episodes that I'm a bit like, where I'm a bit like, why am I doing this? And then Maddie, you'll have a take on it where I go, oh yeah, that's quite interesting. It's because I am a genius. Yes. If you haven't already, go and watch Dog Soldiers, absolutely phenomenal film. Dog soldiers, dog soldiers, that is the theme. That's how the theme tune goes.

It's great. If you want to hear more. To transform into a werewolf. Yeah. Email us with. tips on your transformation. No, please don't. We don't want to see it.

Afterdarka history hit.com, if you want us to discuss more folklore that Anthony doesn't want to talk about. No. Please. I want to. I love these. I know you do.

And I feel bad because I don't. I just think there's a, there's such an interesting fluidity in these stories. And I think it just tells us so much about human anxiety, human nature. But this is why I enjoy doing them with you, like genuinely because, yeah, to me, I'll just be like. Yeah. You're like, it's not real.

And it's not real. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is real. But I love what that thing that you said about the masculinity tropes and gender tropes and all those kind of things. I was like, oh, yeah, that's interesting. That's actually a really interesting. So I'm glad that you brought that up. I literally come at it from such a plain thing of going, not true.

Next. Like, you know what I mean? But I don't feel like that about the witchcraft trials. Interestingly. I'm very interested in those. That's because they have more concrete history. Okay. We're going to wrap up.

I don't want to go. No, I'm joking. I do. Four hours of content on were. Tell the people what are you having for lunch? Cheese and pickle baguette. What are you having? Carnation chicken.

Okay. Those are our orders from Pratt. If you're going to know. If you want to buy us lunch. Please don't send in lunch. Right, we're going goodbye. Leave us a five-star review if you enjoyed this chaos. Bye.