The Original Werewolf

 

What is your first thought when you think “Werewolf”? Personally, my first thought is from my favorite TV show ‘Teen Wolf’. My second thought would be a homicidal monster on Halloween from a horror movie. The entire concept of wolves has changed for the modern generation. A werewolf used to be a classic monster along with; vampires, Frankenstein, zombies, mummies, witches. The point is, werewolves were once feared and hunted. The original interpretation of a werewolf was a human who would turn into a feral beast and would savagely attack and kill people every full moon. That is nothing close to the werewolves today.

            Werewolves, or Lycanthrope, are defined as humans with the ability to shift into a wolf or some form of hybrid creature, either on purpose or by being afflicted by some sort of curse; typically by a scratch or bite by another wolf. Lycanthropy was a concept that grew from different Christian interpretations around medieval times. The idea of Lycanthropy went right alongside the idea of witches and magic. In fact, around the time of witch hunts, when people were being accused of being witches or practicing witchcraft, people were accused in a similar way for being believed to be werewolves. People were often accused and persecuted for being werewolves, wolf riding, or even wolf charming. Werewolves became the center of attention following the dying down of witchcraft. Similar to modern times, wolves were often used in medieval romances and became a common topic in the emerging Gothic Horror genre.

            Of course, behind these fears, there is usually a source of the panic. The first recorded sighting of a werewolf was in Germany sometime in 1591. It was said from an ancient pamphlet that, one day, a few townspeople cornered a large wolf and set their dogs on it while they poked at it and pierced it with sticks. Instead of running away, or attacking the townspeople like any normal animal would do, the creature stood up straight. It turned out to be a middle-aged man named Peter Stubbe who lived in the same village. The townspeople put Peter on a torture wheel where he eventually confessed to committing 16 murders, two of his victims being pregnant women and thirteen being children. Peter was an extremely disturbed and, most likely psychotic, man. He claimed to have started practicing sorcery when he was only 12 years old and became so obsessed with it that he even tried to make a pact with the Devil. Peter started to attack people wearing a “magic girdle” and after a few months, would take the guise of a wolf and would brutally kill his victims.  In his “wolf form”, it was said that he would tear out his victims’ throats and would drink their warm blood until he drained them dry. As horrifying and disgusting as these crimes were, there was one that was incomparable to all others; the brutal murder of his own poor son. One day, Peter lured his own son into the woods. He bashed the child’s skull in and ate his brains. This was what his supposed “wolf form” was capable of.

            The myth of werewolves wasn’t completely made up of someone’s imagination for the sake of escaping boredom, it was a way to escape reality. It was a coping mechanism, a scapegoat for human behavior that typical people simply could not understand. Peter Stubbe’s crimes were so disturbing and inhuman that people had to think of a reason, had to give it some type of name. Creating the myth of werewolves was a way to keep people from living in constant fear of each other. The sad and horrifying truth is, these monsters, these beasts that fill our storybooks and myths, they are people that we will inevitably cross at some point in our lives. Our fear is not of mythical creatures that hide in our closets and under our beds, because the real monsters live inside humans themselves. People do terrible and cruel things to each other every single day, and we would like to think that that the people who live alongside us are not capable of such things because it makes life a little less frightening. No one wants to go through their lives thinking that anyone they meet or encounter during their day could be someone to harm them.