Werewolves Throughout History
Hello all. This page is dedicated to the history of Werewolves. Everyone knows the lore behind the werewolf but what most do not know is that there are historical facts about these beings. Where they originated from no one truly knows but I will go as far back as I can and give a full history. I will include the media and movies but I will only use very few of these things. This page is about historical facts not fiction as most of todays Hollywood Depicts. You may be surprised at how far back that I have already found
The first acknowledgment of a werewolf come from a cave painting found in a cave in Southern Turkey in 2014. The drawing was found amongst 14 other drawing. Scientists have dated this drawing to have been made around 8000 BC when Turkey as we know it today was part of ancient Greece.
In 1550 BC King Lycaon, was the king of Arcadia, and in the time of the ancient Greeks notorious for his cruelty. He tried to buy the favor of Zeus by offering him the flesh of a young child. So he had his youngest son slaughtered and cooked as an offering. Zeus punished him for this crime and turned him into a wolf. The legends of werewolves have been told since the ancient Greeks and are known all over the world. In areas where the wolf is not so common, the belief in werewolves is replaced by folklore where men can change themselves in tigers, lions, bears and other fierce animals. The term Lycanthrope is derived from this.
In 440 BC One of the more interesting stories is of the Gandillon family, which is detailed in Boguet’s Discours de Sorciers. The story begins with a girl Pernette Gandillon that one day walked around on all fours like a wolf and attacked another girl. The attacked girl’s brother helped her only to get his throat torn out by Pernette. The townsfolk quickly killed Pernette on the spot without trial. The story does not stop there, however. Pernette’s brother was also accused to have been a werewolf, and there were accusations that he used a salve given to him by Satan so that he could transform into a wolf. This is where the idea of being bitten by a werewolf could change the bitten in to another werewolf.
425 BC) writes of the Neuri people, who transform into wolves once a year.
400 BC – A victorious Olympic boxer by the name of Damarchus, an Arcadian of Parrhasia, is said to have transformed into that of a wolf at the sacrifice of Lycaean (Wolf) Zeus, and nine years after he became a man again.
37 BC – Roman poet Virgil (70 BC – 19 BC), in the “Eclogues”, tells of the change of Moeris, to the form of a wolf by the use of herbs.
2 BC – 8 AD – Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17 AD) writes “Metamorphoses including a verse about Lycaon, who is transformed into a wolf by the god Zeus.
60 AD Satyricon by Roman writer Petronius (27-66 AD), contains a detailed account of a soldier who is a werewolf.
970 AD – A man named Baianus is believed to be able to turn himself into a wolf through the arts of necromancy.
1020 AD – First use of the word “werewulf” recorded in English
1101 AD – Death of Vseslav Bryachislavich, the most famous ruler of Polotsk, believed by many to be a werewolf.
1182 AD – Welsh historian Giraldus Cambrensis (1146 – 1223) encounters Irish werewolves who transform during the Yuletide feast. The werewolves were reportedly natives of Ossory, whose people had been cursed by St. Natalis for their wickedness.
During the 15th-19th centuries, while the witch hunts were going on so were werewolf hunts. Many were burned at the stake for being werewolves even though very few claimed as being a werewolf. Here are some such stories.
1502 -1521 AD The three werewolves of Poligny, Pierre Bourgot, Michel Verdung (or Udon), and Philibert Mentot are burnt at the stake being werewolves.
1541 AD In Pavia, Italy, a farmer in the form of a wolf is said to have torn many men in the open country to pieces. After being captured, he assures his captors that the only difference between himself and a natural wolf, was that in a true wolf the hair grew outward, whilst in him it struck inward. In order to put this assertion to the proof, the magistrates cut off his arms and legs, and he dies from wounds.
1573 AD – Gilles Garnier, the Werewolf of Dole, is burnt at the stake.
1578 –AD Jacques Rollet goes on trial in Paris. He was found guilty of being a werewolf.
1588 AD – The Werewolf of Auvergne is burned at the stake.
1589 – Peter Stubb is executed in Germany after terrorizing the countryside near Cologne in the form of a wolf.I n the late 16th century, the town of Bedburg, Germany was terrorized by a diabolical creature that slaughtered its cattle and snatched away its women and children, killing them with unspeakable morbidity. The shocked and horrified townspeople feared that they were being victimized by a raving demon from Hell or, just as bad, a bloodthirsty werewolf who lived among them.
This is the true story of Peter Stubbe -- the Werewolf of Bedburg -- whose crimes plunged a German town already beset by political and religious turmoil into an unimaginable nightmare, and whose heinous murders rival the bloody viciousness of any of today's most gruesome slasher movies.
Peter Stubbe (also documented as Peter Stube, Peeter Stubbe, Peter Stübbe and Peter Stumpf, as well as the aliases Abal Griswold, Abil Griswold, and Ubel Griswold) was a wealthy farmer in the rural community of Bedburg, located in the electorate of Cologne, Germany. The community knew him as a pleasant enough widower and father of two adolescent children, whose wealth insured him a measure of respect and influence. But this was Peter Stubbe's public face. His true nature erupted through some black scar in his soul to satisfy a bloodlust when he donned the skin of a wolf.
Day after day for many weeks, they would find cattle dead in the pastures, ripped open as if by some savage animal.
The farmers naturally suspected wolves, but this was actually the beginning of Peter Stubbe's unnatural compulsion to mutilate and kill. This insatiable drive would soon escalate into attacks on his neighboring villagers.
Children began to disappear from their farms and homes. Young women vanished from the paths they traveled daily. Some were found dead, horribly mutilated. Others were never found. The community was thrown into a panic. Hungry wolves were again suspected and the villagers armed themselves against the animals.
Some even feared a more devious creature – a werewolf who could walk among them unsuspected as a man, then transform into a wolf to satisfy its hunger.
This was the case. Although he did not literally transform into a wolf, Peter Stubbe would cloak himself with the skin of a wolf when seeking his victims. At his trial Stubbe confessed that the Devil himself gave him a magic belt of wolf fur at age 12 that, when he put it on, transformed him into "the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like brands of fire; a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth; a huge body and mighty paws." When he took the belt off, he believed, he returned to his human state.
Peter Stubbe was a deranged serial killer and over the course of his murderous career, he was responsible for the deaths of 13 children, two pregnant women and numerous livestock. And these were no ordinary murders:
• The young women among his victims were sexually assaulted before he tore them apart.
• With the pregnant women, he ripped the fetuses from their wombs and "ate their hearts panting hot and raw," which he later described as "dainty morsels."
• Small children were strangled, bludgeoned and throats ripped open with his bare hands. Some were disemboweled and partially eaten.
• Lambs and calves were ripped apart and devoured raw.
1590 AD – Michel Jaques confesses to becoming a wolf seven or eight times after anointing himself with an unguent given to him by the devil.
1598 AD – The “Werewolf of Châlons”, known also as the “Demon Tailor”, was arraigned in France on December 14, on murder charges.
1764 – 1767 – The Beast of Gévaudan terrorizes the former province of Gévaudan, in the Margeride Mountains in south-central France. There were over 100 victims.
1824 – Antoine Leger tried for werewolf crimes and sentenced to lunatic asylum.
1852 – Traveling vendor Manuel Blanco Romasanta confesses to the murders of thirteen people. Romasanta was tried in Allariz and eluded capital punishment by professing he was a werewolf.
1865 – “The Book of Were-Wolves” is written by the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould. Still considered one of the leading books on werewolf history.
1941 – The film “The Wolf Man” starring Lon Chaney Jr. is released.
1981 – The film “An American Werewolf in London” is released and includes first four-footed werewolf.
There are a lot of films that depicts a lot of Hollywood tech in to in and changing stories and lore and the such for entertainment purposes only. But what I have written is true to fact werewolf facts and the idea that at one time they may of even existed. In todays world a true werewolf could walk amongst us and we would have no idea. The legends spoken of in ancient times may come back to bite us literally as most people write off werewolves as legends and lore. But what most people do not understand is that even in myth there has to be some reality that started the whole thing.
I hope that you have enjoyed and this page will be updated as more history is made.
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